The intervention effect of different distribution ratio of Astragalus total saponins and curcumin on the DM rats model
Authors: Xiaoli Yan
Mingsan Miao
Xiao Li
Journal: Saudi Pharmaceutical Journal (2017)
Discipline: PHARMACOLOGY & TOXICOLOGY
Keywords: Astragalus total saponins (ATS); Curcumin; Diabetes model; Different proportion; Rats.
Affiliations: Pharmacology Specialty, Henan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou 450046, China.

Abstract:  Through the study of the effect of different ratio of Astragalus Total Saponins (ATS) and curcumin on Diabetes Mellitu (DM) model rats, we want to improve the screening model of the distribution ratio in Chinese Medicine, screening out the optimal proportion of the prevention and control of DM. By injecting streptozotocin (STZ) in the tail vein of rats to induct the DM rats model, we measured the dynamic change, insulin and insulin antibody (IAA) levels, glycosylated serum protein (GSP) content, lipid metabolism and the changes of renal pathology in DM model rats. The different distribution ratio of ATS and Curcumin can significantly reduce GSP, total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL); significantly increased serum insulin levels and high density lipoprotein (HDL) content, significantly decreased IAA level on the DM rats model induced by STZ. Different proportions of ATS and Curcumin have a good therapeutic effect on DM model rats, and 6:4 is the optimal proportion for the prevention and treatment of DM. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 # **Challenges in writing about contributorship** This essay on authorship and contributorship has a well-populated author byline but, ironically, no statement of contributions. Some aspects of the writing merit comment. ## ***Issues of sentence formation*** Two statements require correction. In the following extract, the words u201cbut they are not included inu201d do not belong to the direct quotation: This approach works for authorship decisions, for the most part, however it can fail, for example, if one makes u201csubstantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work but they are not included in drafting the work or revising critically for important intellectual contentu201d (u201cICMJE | Recommendations Defining the Role of Authors and Contributorsu201d n.d.). The correction involves making two quotations, with the first ending at u201cu2026 for the worku201d and the second opening with u201c[d]rafting the work ...u201d. The intervening words should be u201cbut is not included inu201d. In the next sentence, during paraphrasing of ICMJEu2019s recommendations, a negative was changed to positive: The guidelines describe work that alone qualifies a contributor for authorship, such as acquisition of funding, leadership of a research group, administrative support, and writing support. The words u201cwork that alone qualifiesu201d should be changed to u201ctasks that alone do not qualifyu201d. Two ungrammatical sentences should be rewritten. The following sentence is unintelligible: When it comes to contribution types and labor roles, women with varying experience in academics are often performing experiments, which are associated with academically younger scholars (Macaluso et al. 2016). To be meaningful to readers, the context of the cited study should be given and the concept of academic age should be defined. It is not the experiments that are associated with younger age, but the fact of doing experiments (as opposed to supervising them). Thus, the main verb should be in present tense, indicative mood, while the verb after u201cwhichu201d should be singular. The association is with age (a quantitative variable), not u201cscholarsu201d, and the women in the study had varying levels of experience, not u201cvarying experienceu201d (i.e. amount, not type, of experience). The next extract is a sentence fragment that needs a verb and a clear subject: As the scholarly reward system has long-been solely reliant on authorship in routine academic workflows, such as publishing, reporting to funders, annual faculty reporting, hiring, and promotion and tenure. ## ***Issues of content*** In addition to problems at the sentence level, the essay is notable for its lack of critical appraisal of contributorship schemes. It does not mention the lack of evidence on the accuracy of checkbox-based schemes with predetermined roles of a generic nature (e.g. u201cinvestigationu201d, u201cformal analysisu201d). Moreover, it does not cite articles that highlighted how such checkboxes can induce authors to choose more roles than they actually performed [1] or take credit for roles fulfilled by non-authors who are acknowledged [2]. While the essay does briefly mention problems in authorship assignment, it doesnu2019t suggest how the proposed contributorship schemes can solve them. As long as authors are not required to formally state in their articles that they meet certain authorship criteria but are permitted to declare contributor roles, then fulfilling any single role (e.g. commenting on a manuscript) becomes sufficient for authorship. There is the risk, then, that checkbox-based contributorship schemes enable authorship abuse. Strong evidence for the accuracy and usability of contributor role data should be obtained before contributorship schemes become universally required or formalized as an international standard. Finally, the essay conflates *ghost authorship* (the situation that ensues, for example, when a manuscript is prepared by an industry-paid professional writer who is neither listed as author nor acknowledged) with *denied authorship* (when a person who made a substantial contribution to a study is excluded from authorship by the other authors [3-6]). Because the motivations for u2013 and the effects of u2013 ghost authorship and denied authorship are different, these two forms of academic misconduct should be distinguished. The essay expresses the view that persons named on the byline need not u201cnecessarily be involved in the writing or revision of the manuscriptu201d, in contrast with ICMJE authorship criteria. This view may have merit for articles that report technologically complex research studies, but it fails for essays, commentaries and reviews u2013 genres for which the only intellectual activity involved is writing in the fullest sense. Thus, when persons who did not contribute to the writing are listed as authors of a non-research article, their contributions can be interpreted as no more than an endorsement of the articleu2019s thesis. To safeguard the meaning of scholarly authorship, journals and academic institutions should encourage adherence to authorship criteria, whether or not contributor roles are declared. **Disclaimer** I am an authorsu2019 editor and teacher of academic writing who on a daily basis helps researchers formulate clearly written arguments. An article of mine on credit and contributorship was overlooked in this essay. ## ***References*** 1. Marusiu0107 A, Bates T, Aniu0107 A, Marusiu0107 M. How the structure of contribution disclosure statements affects validity of authorship: a randomized study in a general medical journal. Curr Med Res Opin 2006; 22(6):1035-1044. DOI:10.1185 030079906x104885 2. Matarese V, Shashok K. Transparent attribution of contributions to research: aligning guidelines to real-life practices. Publications 2019; 7:24. DOI:10.3390 publications7020024 3. Nylenna, M, Fagerbakk F, Kierulf, P. Authorship: attitudes and practice among Norwegian researchers. BMC Med Ethics 2014; 15:53. DOI: 10.1186 1472-6939-15-53 4. Paul-Hus A, Mongeon P, Sainte-Marie M, Lariviu00e8re V. Who are the acknowledgees? An analysis of gender and academic status. Quant Sci Studies 2020; 1(2):582u2013598. DOI: 10.1162 qss_a_00036 5. Street JM, Rogers WA, Israel M, Braunack-Mayer AJ. Credit where credit is due? Regulation, research integrity and the attribution of authorship in the health sciences. Soc Sci Med 2010; 70(9):1458-1465. DOI: 10.1016 j.socscimed.2010.01.013 6. Puljak L, Sambunjak D. Can authorship be denied for contract work? Sci Eng Ethics 2020; 26(2):1031-1037. DOI: 10.1007 s11948-019-00173-5 , 
 #1 # **Challenges in writing about contributorship** This essay on authorship and contributorship has a well-populated author byline but, ironically, no statement of contributions. Some aspects of the writing merit comment. **RESPONSE:** *Accountability in Research is a Taylor Francis journal that has not yet incorporated CRediT roles into their submission workflow. The manuscript was collaboratively written in Google Docs and the content was migrated to [Manubot] to monitor edits and publicly track contributor information. Contributor roles were established before the manuscript was submitted and can be found at https: data2health.github.io contributorship . The[ discussion] and[ implementation] of adding contributor roles are available on GitHub.* ## **Issues of sentence formation** Two statements require correction. In the following extract, the words u201cbut they are not included inu201d do not belong to the direct quotation: This approach works for authorship decisions, for the most part, however it can fail, for example, if one makes u201csubstantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work but they are not included in drafting the work or revising critically for important intellectual contentu201d (u201cICMJE | Recommendations Defining the Role of Authors and Contributorsu201d n.d.). The correction involves making two quotations, with the first ending at u201cu2026 for the worku201d and the second opening with u201c[d]rafting the work ...u201d. The intervening words should be u201cbut is not included inu201d. In the next sentence, during paraphrasing of ICMJEu2019s recommendations, a negative was changed to positive: The guidelines describe work that alone qualifies a contributor for authorship, such as acquisition of funding, leadership of a research group, administrative support, and writing support. The words u201cwork that alone qualifiesu201d should be changed to u201ctasks that alone do not qualifyu201d. **RESPONSE:** *We thank you for pointing this out. This has been a production issue. The correction has been made in the article.* Two ungrammatical sentences should be rewritten. The following sentence is unintelligible: When it comes to contribution types and labor roles, women with varying experience in academics are often performing experiments, which are associated with academically younger scholars (Macaluso et al. 2016). To be meaningful to readers, the context of the cited study should be given and the concept of academic age should be defined. It is not the experiments that are associated with younger age, but the fact of doing experiments (as opposed to supervising them). Thus, the main verb should be in present tense, indicative mood, while the verb after u201cwhichu201d should be singular. The association is with age (a quantitative variable), not u201cscholarsu201d, and the women in the study had varying levels of experience, not u201cvarying experienceu201d (i.e. amount, not type, of experience). The next extract is a sentence fragment that needs a verb and a clear subject: As the scholarly reward system has long-been solely reliant on authorship in routine academic workflows, such as publishing, reporting to funders, annual faculty reporting, hiring, and promotion and tenure. **RESPONSE:** *Thank you for pointing out these opportunities for improvement. Weu2019ll be mindful of these suggestions in future works.* ## **Issues of content** In addition to problems at the sentence level, the essay is notable for its lack of critical appraisal of contributorship schemes. It does not mention the lack of evidence on the accuracy of checkbox-based schemes with predetermined roles of a generic nature (e.g. u201cinvestigationu201d, u201cformal analysisu201d). Moreover, it does not cite articles that highlighted how such checkboxes can induce authors to choose more roles than they actually performed [1] or take credit for roles fulfilled by non-authors who are acknowledged [2]. **RESPONSE:** *Critical appraisal of contributorship schemes was not the intent of our paper. These topics have been explored by others and would certainly be good to address in an article that focuses more deeply on contributorship and its implementation.* While the essay does briefly mention problems in authorship assignment, it doesnu2019t suggest how the proposed contributorship schemes can solve them. As long as authors are not required to formally state in their articles that they meet certain authorship criteria but are permitted to declare contributor roles, then fulfilling any single role (e.g. commenting on a manuscript) becomes sufficient for authorship. There is the risk, then, that checkbox-based contributorship schemes enable authorship abuse. Strong evidence for the accuracy and usability of contributor role data should be obtained before contributorship schemes become universally required or formalized as an international standard. **RESPONSE:** *Contributorship schemes are indeed meant to help improve the transparency of contributions. These schemes would help clarify whether all authors met the required criteria or not. In terms of providing strong evidence (whatever that may mean), we believe that structured discussion of these issues by expert working groups (e.g., the FORCE11 attribution group) paralleled with empirical analysis could open a window into how these schemes are used and ways to improve them. One advantage of contributorship schemes is that they can be revised, so all we need to do is to keep the conversation going and be as inclusive as possible. One notable effort is the work happening through the [NISO-supported CRediT initiative](http: credit.niso.org ), with recent progress described [here] .* Finally, the essay conflates *ghost authorship* (the situation that ensues, for example, when a manuscript is prepared by an industry-paid professional writer who is neither listed as author nor acknowledged) with *denied authorship* (when a person who made a substantial contribution to a study is excluded from authorship by the other authors [3-6]). Because the motivations for u2013 and the effects of u2013 ghost authorship and denied authorship are different, these two forms of academic misconduct should be distinguished. **RESPONSE:** *We have taken a broad perspective in our understanding of ghost authorship. Whether excluded or denied, we consider both as being ghosted.* The essay expresses the view that persons named on the byline need not u201cnecessarily be involved in the writing or revision of the manuscriptu201d, in contrast with ICMJE authorship criteria. This view may have merit for articles that report technologically complex research studies, but it fails for essays, commentaries and reviews u2013 genres for which the only intellectual activity involved is writing in the fullest sense. Thus, when persons who did not contribute to the writing are listed as authors of a non-research article, their contributions can be interpreted as no more than an endorsement of the articleu2019s thesis. To safeguard the meaning of scholarly authorship, journals and academic institutions should encourage adherence to authorship criteria, whether or not contributor roles are declared. **RESPONSE:** *The ICMJE does not suggest these specific categories and on that basis, we do mention the u201cnecessarilyu201d as a qualifier to allow for nuances. That being said, your comment could provide good material for future research on the difference between the complexities of understanding and implementing authorship policies in research and non-research articles.* **Disclaimer** I am an authorsu2019 editor and teacher of academic writing who on a daily basis helps researchers formulate clearly written arguments. An article of mine on credit and contributorship was overlooked in this essay. **RESPONSE:** *Thank you very much for bringing this paper to our attention. Our paper was more broadly scoped than the focus of your paper, and therefore this reference was not included.* , 
 Dear Kristi, Thanks for responding. Your justification for not including a statement about the contributions of 16 authors to a non-research article is that *Accountability in Research* u201chas not yet incorporated CRediT rolesu201d. I would argue that scholarly publishing is first and foremost about communicating with readers, while collecting points on how many roles each author fulfilled (on a separate document) is a secondary priority. Information on how the authors contributed to writing the article is useful to readers, even if not required by the journal. In my experience, journals that do not provide a contributorship template will allow authors to include an open-ended statement in which specific roles are detailed. Open-ended contributor statements are standard practice at some journals (1). The roles of the 16 authors, as listed on the Github page you linked to, do not match the authorship criteria of the journalu2019s publisher (see https: authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com editorial-policies ) or of the ICMJE. Some authorsu2019 only contributions were u201cstandardsu201d, u201ccoordinationu201d or u201csoftwareu201d. I am unaware of authorship criteria in which one of these roles suffices for byline status. Your article is an excellent illustration of my concerns about the replacement of authorship with contributorship. The more fine-grained these contributorship schemes become, the easier it will be for persons to claim their place on the byline of articles to which they have contributed little more than standards, coordination, comments or endorsement. I pointed out two erroneous statements about the ICMJE guidelines, and you responded u201cThe correction has been madeu201d. One error has been corrected, but the other remains: u201cThe guidelines describe work that alone qualifies a contributor for authorship, such as acquisition of funding, leadership of a research group, administrative support, and writing support.u201d While it seems that you and your coauthors believe that leadership and administrative support (read: u201ccoordinationu201d) are worthy of authorship, the ICMJE clearly states the contrary. The statement should read: u201cThe guidelines describe tasks that alone **do not qualify** a contributor for authorship, such as acquisition of funding, leadership of a research group, administrative support, and writing support.u201d It would be helpful to readers if you make this change to the article, to avoid misrepresenting the source. You could also provide a counterargument, if you wish. Finally, to my call for u201c[s]trong evidence for the accuracy and usability of contributor role datau201d, you responded u201cstrong evidence (whatever that may mean)u201d. To learn about levels of evidence, this is a good place to start: https: en.wikipedia.org wiki Hierarchy_of_evidence. In addition to these quantitative research strategies, qualitative research would also be of great value on this topic. For example, a recent qualitative research study revealed various causes of authorship disputes and illustrated the dynamics of authorship decision making (2). Some of the issues uncovered by that study I see in my job as authorsu2019 editor, working closely with researchers on their manuscripts. Although for reasons of client confidentiality I cannot document my observations, I am aware that checkbox contributor roles are not always understood and the roles that are declared are not always accurate. So before you move forward with more elaborate contributor checkbox schemes, weu2014I mean the scientific communityu2014need to be sure that the definitions of these roles are immediately clear (for example, in the u201cstandards roleu201d, do you mean standards in research, ethics, academic English, or something else?) and that researchers across the world understand them in the same way and are likely to declare them accurately. **References** 1. Sauermann H, Haeussler C. Authorship and contribution disclosures. Sci Adv. 2017;3(11):e1700404. DOI:10.1126 sciadv.1700404 2. Smith E, Williams-Jones B, Master Z, et al. Researchers perceptions of ethical authorship distribution in collaborative research teams [published online ahead of print, 2019 Jun 4]. Sci Eng Ethics. 2019; DOI:10.1007 s11948-019-00113-3. , 
 Dear Valerie, Thank you for taking the time to point out some weaknesses of the paper and errors we made. All authors indeed edited the manuscript. Unfortunately the  writing review and editing roleu201d was not fully attributed in the Manubot version. This has now been [fixed] . Your observations should be addressed by [future work] and you (and every reader of this response) are welcome to join the [FORCE11 Attribution Working Group] to continue the discussion. Warm regards, Kristi ,