Cultivated soil quality is crucial because it directly affects food safety and human health, and rice is of primary concern because of its centrality to global food networks. However, a detailed understanding of cadmium (Cd) geochemical cycling in paddy soils is complicated by the multiple influencing factors present in many rice-growing areas that overlap with industrial centers. This study analyzed the pollution characteristics and health risks of Cd in paddy soils across Hainan Island and identified key influencing factors based on multi-source environmental data and prediction models. Approximately 27.07% of the soil samples exceeded the risk control standard screening value for Cd in China, posing an uncontaminated to moderate contamination risk. Cd concentration and exposure duration contributed the most to non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks to children, teens, and adults through ingestion. Among the nine prediction models tested, Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) exhibited the best performance for Cd prediction with soil properties having the highest importance, followed by climatic variables and topographic attributes. In summary, XGBoost reliably predicted the soil Cd concentrations on tropical islands. Further research should incorporate additional soil properties and environmental variables for more accurate predictions and to comprehensively identify their driving factors and corresponding contribution rates.

Vast accumulative evidence suggests that the consumption of tea and its components have various potential health benefits. This study used a longitudinal study to examine the causality between tea consumption and frailty in older Chinese people.

This study employed the longitudinal data from 2008 to 2014 of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), which were systematically collected through face-to-face interviews. Two thousand four hundred and seventy three participants completed six-follow-up surveys in 2014 and were analyzed in this study. The frailty index recommended by Searle and co-authors, including 44 health deficits, was used. A Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) was applied to determine the risk ratio (RR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) for frailty, and further subgroup analyses were conducted to investigate whether the risk differed stratified by age, sex, and socioeconomic status. Additionally, the interaction between tea consumption with sex and frailty was tested.

Of the 2,473 participants, 14.1% were consistent daily tea drinkers, and 22.6% reported frailty at the 6-year follow-up. Compared to non-tea drinkers, consistent daily tea drinkers reported a significantly lower ratio of having frailty [risk ratio (RR) = 0.54, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.38-0.78], adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, health behavior, socioeconomic status, and chronic illnesses. In further subgroup analyses, consistent daily tea consumption significantly reduced the risk of frailty for males (RR = 0.53, 95% CI: 0.32-0.87) but not females (RR = 0.65, 95% CI: 0.37-1.12); in the young (RR = 0.40, 95% CI: 0.22-0.74) but not in the oldest (aged ≥ 80) (RR = 0.66, 95% CI: 0.40-1.06); informal education (RR = 0.48, 95% CI: 0.28-0.84) but not formal education (RR = 0.62, 95% CI: 0.37-1.03); financial dependence (RR = 0.42, 95% CI: 0.25-0.71) but not financial independence (RR = 0.71, 95% CI: 0.41-1.23). Additionally, females showed a lower tea-mediated risk of frailty in occasional tea consumers (RR = 0.51, 95% CI: 0.29-0.89) and inconsistent tea drinkers (RR = 0.58, 95% CI: 0.37-0.93).

Habitual tea consumption can reduce the risk of frailty in older Chinese, and the benefit varied by age, sex, education, and financial support.

Colorectal cancer is the third leading to death type of cancer in the world. The therapeutic guideline varied between different methods. As the main therapeutic guideline is chemotherapy, recent studies had shown utilization of natural products in combination with conventional medication, elevate the efficiency of chemotherapeutic methods. Kombucha is a traditional beverage obtained from the fermentation of green tea as a rich source of flavonoid medicinal plant. This study aimed to evaluate the natural potential of combination therapy of this natural product with doxorubicin as a chemotherapeutic agent.

The study was performed as in vitro evaluation of biological activity of kombucha on HCT-116 cell line (human colon cancer cell line). The cytotoxic effect of different kombucha beverages (fermented green tea) in comparison with green tea extract was evaluated by dimethylthiazolyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. In the next step, anticancer activity of doxorubicin as a general guideline chemotherapeutic agent in combination with kombucha was evaluated by cell cycle analysis and apoptosis assay flow cytometry. Apoptotic genes expression pattern was determined using real-time polymerase chain reaction. The experiments were designed in three independent replications and statistically analyzed using SPSS software.

The results show that kombucha compared with the green tea extract caused more (1.2 fold) early apoptosis induction and G0/G1 phase arrest. Moreover, kombucha increased the expression levels of p21, p53, and B-cell leukemia/lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2)-associated X protein genes (2, 2.5, and 1.5 fold, respectively) while it decreased Bcl-2 gene expression level (5-8 fold) compared with doxorubicin alone. Combination of kombucha with doxorubicin shows 2-fold increased G0/G1 phase compared with the doxorubicin treatment.

This result indicated that kombucha caused boosted anticancer activity of doxorubicin agent. These findings suggest that kombucha may be has an assistor and useful role in colorectal cancer treatment align with chemotherapy.

The aim of this study is to assess the content of heavy metals and their potential health risk in consumed food crops. To this end, the samples from vegetables, rice, potato, onion, and black tea were derived from high sales and commonly consumed types. The noncarcinogenic health risk of heavy metals to the adults, teens, and children was estimated by target hazard quotients (THQs) and hazard index (HI) calculation. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses were carried out using Monte Carlo simulations. Heavy metal pollution index (HMI) was used for ranking noncarcinogenic heavy metal pollution in sampled food crops. THQs showed that noncarcinogenic health risks to the local population were largely related to As (0.71 for adults, 0.87 for teens, and 2.4 for children), Mn (0.43 for adults, 0.28 for teens, and 0.64 for children), and Mo (0.12 for adults, 0.02 for teens, and 0.4 for children). HI for individual food crops (HIΣfi) in terms of different populations showed that the highest HIΣfi was for children while the highest HIΣTea was for adults. The arrangement of the calculated HIΣfi along with its highest value was in the order of HIΣRice (3.71) > HIΣTea (0.39) > HIΣBeans (0.2) > HIΣVegetables (0.13) > HIΣOnion (0.12) > HIΣPotato (0.11). The value of HI for all sampled food crops based on their daily ingestion rate achieved by deterministic and probabilistic (Monte Carlo simulations) approaches for adults, teens, and children was 1.63, 1.28, and 1.87, 1.67, 4.51, and 2.48 respectively, and revealed that all populations are vulnerable to the significant noncarcinogenic health risks and children are at more risk. The sensitivity analysis revealed that the ingestion rate (IR) is the most influential factor that contributed to the total risk. The determined HMI showed no heavy metal pollution for all food crops, and rice had higher-order in HMI ranking. These results showed that heavy metals exposure due to food ingestion is a threat to human health and needs choosing a proper strategy to reduce heavy metal exposure.

The association between frequency of meals and snacks and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is less studied in Middle-Eastern countries.

We aimed to determine the relationship between meal and snack frequency with GERD symptoms in a large sample of Iranian adults.

In this cross-sectional study, 4669 individuals filled out a questionnaire about their number of meals and snacks. Frequency of total meals was defined by summing up the frequency of main meals and snacks, and participants were categorized into four categories: < 3, 3-5, 6-7 and ≥ 8 meals/day. GERD was defined as having heartburn sometimes or more during the last 3 months. The severity of disease was assessed.

The prevalence of GERD in the study population was 23.7%. There was no significant association between meal or snack frequency and GERD symptoms in the whole population. However, after adjustment of all potential confounders, we found that women who consumed 1-2 or 3-5 snacks per day, compared with those who never had snacks, had a 41% (OR 0.59; 95% CI 0.42-0.84) and 51% (OR 0.49; 95% CI 0.32-0.75) reduced risk of having GERD, respectively. Women who consumed 6-7 or ≥ 8 snacks and meals per day had a 38% (OR 0.62; 95% CI 0.41-0.96) and 43% (OR 0.57; 95% CI 0.34-0.95) risk reduction for GERD compared with those who ate < 3 snacks and meals per day.

We found no significant association between meal frequency and GERD symptoms in the whole population. Gender-specific analysis revealed inverse associations between meal and snack frequency and GERD in Iranian women. Further prospective studies are required to confirm these associations.