Journal of the Chinese Medical Association : JCMA
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The pandemic infection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is widely increasing the patients affiliated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from last December of 2019. It is reported that the entry receptor of SARS-CoV-2 has been confirmed to be angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). ⋯ Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DDP-4), a well-known anti-diabetic drug, has been widely used to control the glycemic condition in patients with diabetes. In this article, we are focusing on the impact of ACE inhibitors (ACEI) and DPP4 inhibitors used on SARS-CoV-2 activity and discussions about those drugs that may be related to infectious condition of COVID-19 diseases.
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Maintaining physical fitness is important for health of the elderly. How to implement an effective and efficient model is a practical issue. A healthy physical fitness promotion program with machine-assisted exercises was designed for elderly and executed in a community in 2015 and 2016. The program was implemented for 10 to 12 weeks with two (group 1) or three (group 2) sessions per week, and functional fitness tests were conducted before, at the end, and 3 months after the training. This study is to investigate the effectiveness of machine-assisted physical fitness promotion program for the community elderly. ⋯ This study discovered that 10 to 12 weeks of machine-assisted exercise training can improve the elderly community members' body composition, muscle strength, muscle endurance, agility, dynamic balance, and cardiorespiratory endurance. Moreover, with three sessions per week, its effects were even maintained for 3 months after the training.
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The recent outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has been causing respiratory diseases globally, damaging wide ranges of social-economic activities. This virus is transmitted through personal contact and possibly also through ambient air. Effective biosensor platforms for the detection of this virus and the related host response are in urgent demand. ⋯ Furthermore, environmental biosensors can be designed to detect SARS-CoV-2 in the ambient air or in the intensive care ventilators. Here, we evaluate technical components of biosensors, including the biological targets of recognition, the recognition methods, and the signal amplification and transduction systems. Effective SARS-CoV-2 detectors can be designed by an adequate combination of these technologies.