Herbal Prescriptions and Medicinal Herbs for Parkinson-Related Rigidity in Korean Medicine: Identification of Candidates Using Text Mining

Criteria for the selection, evaluation and application of traditional knowledge in contemporary health practice, education, research and policy: A systematic review

BACKGROUND

Traditional and complementary medicine (T&CM) is highly utilised and draws on traditional knowledge (TK) as evidence, raising a need to explore how TK is currently used.

OBJECTIVES

Examine criteria used to select, evaluate and apply TK in contemporary health contexts.

METHODS

Systematic search utilising academic databases (AMED, CINAHL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, SSCI, ProQuest Dissertations Theses Global), Trip clinical database and Google search engine. Citations and reference lists of included articles were searched. Reported use of TK in contemporary settings was mapped against a modified 'Exploration-Preparation-Implementation-Sustainment' (EPIS) implementation framework.

RESULTS

From the 54 included articles, EPIS mapping found TK is primarily used in the Exploration phase of implementation (n = 54), with little reporting on Preparation (n = 16), Implementation process (n = 6) or Sustainment (n = 4) of TK implementation. Criteria used in selection, evaluation and application of TK commonly involved validation with other scientific/traditional evidence sources, or assessment of factors influencing knowledge translation.

DISCUSSION

One of the difficulties in validation of TK (as a co-opted treatment) against other evidence sources is comparing like with like as TK often takes a holistic approach. This complicates further planning and evaluation of implementation.

CONCLUSION

This review identifies important criteria for evaluating current and potential contemporary use of TK, identifying gaps in research and practice for finding, appraising and applying relevant TK studies for clinical care.

Factors Considered Important by Healthcare Professionals for the Management of Using Complementary Therapy in Diabetes: A Text-Mining Analysis

Text-mining algorithms can identify the most prevalent factors of risk-benefit assessment on the use of complementary and integrative health approaches that are found in healthcare professionals' written notes. The aims of this study were to discover the key factors of decision-making on patients' complementary and integrative health use by healthcare professionals and to build a consensus-derived decision algorithm on the benefit-risk assessment of complementary and integrative health use in diabetes. The retrospective study of an archival dataset used a text-mining method designed to extract and analyze unstructured textual data from healthcare professionals' responses. The techniques of classification, clustering, and extraction were performed with 1398 unstructured clinical notes made by healthcare professionals between 2019 and 2020. The most important factor for decision-making by healthcare professionals about complementary and integrative health use in patients with diabetes was the ingredients of the product. Other important factors were the patient's diabetes control, the undesirable effects from complementary and integrative health, evidence-based complementary and integrative health, medical laboratory data, and the product's affordability. This exploratory text-mining study provides insight into how healthcare professionals decide complementary and integrative health use for patients with diabetes after a risk-benefit assessment from clinical narrative notes.

A review: traditional herbs and remedies impacting pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by progressive degeneration of dopaminergic neurons, leading to misbalance and loss of coordination. Current therapies are claimed only for symptomatic relief, on long-term use, which causes alteration in basal ganglia, and give rise to various adverse effects like dyskinesia and extra pyramidal side effects, which is reversed and proved to be attenuated with the help of various herbal approaches. Therefore, in order to attenuate the dopaminergic complications, focus of current research has been shifted from dopaminergic to non-dopaminergic strategies. Herbs and herbal remedies seems to be a better option to overcome the complications associated with current dopaminergic therapies. In recent years, various herbs and herbal remedies based on Ayurveda, traditional Chinese and Korean remedies, have become the target of various researches. These herbs and their bioactive compound are being extensively used to treat PD in India, China, Japan, and Korea. The major focus of this current review is to analyze preclinical studies with reference to various herbs, bioactive compounds, and traditional remedies for the management of Parkinson disorder, which will give an insight towards clinical trials.

Identification of candidate medicinal herbs for skincare via data mining of the classic Donguibogam text on Korean medicine

Background

Korean cosmetics are widely exported throughout Asia. Cosmetics exploiting traditional Korean medicine lead this trend; thus, the traditional medicinal literature has been invaluable in terms of cosmetic development. We sought candidate medicinal herbs for skincare.

Methods

We used data mining to investigate associations between medicinal herbs and skin-related keywords (SRKs) in a classical text. We selected 26 SRKs used in the Donguibogam text; these referred to 626 medicinal herbs. Using a term frequency-inverse document frequency approach, we extracted data on herbal characteristics by assessing the co-occurrence frequencies of 52 medicinal herbs and the 26 SRKs.

Results

We extracted the characteristics of the 52 herbs, each of which exhibited a distinct skin-related action profile. For example Ginseng Radix was associated at a high-level with tonification and anti-aging, but Rehmanniae Radix exhibited a stronger association with anti-aging. Of the 52 herbs, 46 had been subjected to at least one modern study on skincare-related efficacy.

Conclusions

We made a comprehensive list of candidate medicinal herbs for skincare via data mining a classical medical text. This enhances our understanding of such herbs and will help with discovering new candidate herbs.

DES-ROD: Exploring Literature to Develop New Links between RNA Oxidation and Human Diseases

Normal cellular physiology and biochemical processes require undamaged RNA molecules. However, RNAs are frequently subjected to oxidative damage. Overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) leads to RNA oxidation and disturbs redox (oxidation-reduction reaction) homeostasis. When oxidation damage affects RNA carrying protein-coding information, this may result in the synthesis of aberrant proteins as well as a lower efficiency of translation. Both of these, as well as imbalanced redox homeostasis, may lead to numerous human diseases. The number of studies on the effects of RNA oxidative damage in mammals is increasing by year due to the understanding that this oxidation fundamentally leads to numerous human diseases. To enable researchers in this field to explore information relevant to RNA oxidation and effects on human diseases, we developed DES-ROD, an online knowledgebase that contains processed information from 298,603 relevant documents that consist of PubMed abstracts and PubMed Central full-text articles. The system utilizes concepts/terms from 38 curated thematic dictionaries mapped to the analyzed documents. Researchers can explore enriched concepts, as well as enriched pairs of putatively associated concepts. In this way, one can explore mutual relationships between any combinations of two concepts from used dictionaries. Dictionaries cover a wide range of biomedical topics, such as human genes and proteins, pathways, Gene Ontology categories, mutations, noncoding RNAs, enzymes, toxins, metabolites, and diseases. This makes insights into different facets of the effects of RNA oxidation and the control of this process possible. The usefulness of the DES-ROD system is demonstrated by case studies on some known information, as well as potentially novel information involving RNA oxidation and diseases. DES-ROD is the first knowledgebase based on text and data mining that focused on the exploration of RNA oxidation and human diseases.

The Drosophila Model: Exploring Novel Therapeutic Compounds against Neurodegenerative Diseases

Polyphenols are secondary metabolites of plants, fruits, and vegetables. They act as antioxidants against free radicals from UV light, pathogens, parasites, and oxidative stress. In Drosophila models, feeding with various polyphenols results in increased antioxidant capacity and prolonged lifespan. Therefore, dietary polyphenols have several health advantages for preventing many human diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. However, the exact role of polyphenols in neurodegenerative diseases is still yet to be completely defined. This review focuses on the most recent studies related to the therapeutic effect of polyphenols in neurodegenerative disease management and provides an overview of novel drug discovery from various polyphenols using the Drosophila model.

Neuroprotective Effects of Methanolic Extract of Avocado Persea americana (var. Colinred) Peel on Paraquat-Induced Locomotor Impairment, Lipid Peroxidation and Shortage of Life Span in Transgenic knockdown Parkin Drosophila melanogaster

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with oxidative stress. Therefore, finding new antioxidant sources might be beneficial for its treatment. Avocado Persea americana is a fruit widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical climates worldwide. Although avocado by-products in the form of peel, seed coat and seeds are currently of no commercial use, they constitute a natural source of bioactive compounds. Methanolic (80%) extract obtained from lyophilized ground peels, seed coats, and seeds of the avocado Hass, Fuerte, Reed and Colinred varieties were analyzed for their total phenolic content (TPC) and their correlations with antioxidant capacity (AC) were assessed by ABTS, FRAP, and ORAC assays. For all varieties, the var. Colinred peel shows the highest TPC and AC. Further analysis showed that the var. Colinred peel presented major phenolic compounds B-type procyanidins and epicatechin according to HPLC-MS. The antioxidant effect of peel extract was evaluated upon in vivo oxidative stress (OS) model. We show for the first time that the peel extract can protect and/or prevent transgenic parkinDrosophila melanogaster fly against paraquat-induced OS, movement impairment and lipid peroxidation, as model of PD. Our findings offer an exceptional opportunity to test natural disease-modifying substances from avocado's by-products.

Literature-Based Enrichment Insights into Redox Control of Vascular Biology

In cellular physiology and signaling, reactive oxygen species (ROS) play one of the most critical roles. ROS overproduction leads to cellular oxidative stress. This may lead to an irrecoverable imbalance of redox (oxidation-reduction reaction) function that deregulates redox homeostasis, which itself could lead to several diseases including neurodegenerative disease, cardiovascular disease, and cancers. In this study, we focus on the redox effects related to vascular systems in mammals. To support research in this domain, we developed an online knowledge base, DES-RedoxVasc, which enables exploration of information contained in the biomedical scientific literature. The DES-RedoxVasc system analyzed 233399 documents consisting of PubMed abstracts and PubMed Central full-text articles related to different aspects of redox biology in vascular systems. It allows researchers to explore enriched concepts from 28 curated thematic dictionaries, as well as literature-derived potential associations of pairs of such enriched concepts, where associations themselves are statistically enriched. For example, the system allows exploration of associations of pathways, diseases, mutations, genes/proteins, miRNAs, long ncRNAs, toxins, drugs, biological processes, molecular functions, etc. that allow for insights about different aspects of redox effects and control of processes related to the vascular system. Moreover, we deliver case studies about some existing or possibly novel knowledge regarding redox of vascular biology demonstrating the usefulness of DES-RedoxVasc. DES-RedoxVasc is the first compiled knowledge base using text mining for the exploration of this topic.