Highlights

Volume 33, Issue 1-12 (2023)

Issue 12 (December 2023)
Issue 11 (November 2023)
Issue 10 (October 2023)
Issue 9 (September 2023)
Issue 8 (August 2023)
Issue 7 (July 2023)
Issue 6 (June 2023)
Issue 5 (May 2023)
Issue 4 (April 2023)
Issue 3 (March 2023)
Issue 2 (February 2023)
Issue 1 (January 2023)

Volume 33, Issue 12 (December 2023)

• The prevalence of sleep disturbance among Japanese older people assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was 48.7%. 

• There was a strong positive association between all-cause mortality risk in people with sleep disturbance involving both short and long sleep durations.

• There was a U-shaped relationship between sleep duration and mortality risk, with about 420 minutes of sleep per day having the lowest risk of death.

• The all-cause mortality was initially flat up to PSQI score of 5, but thereafter exhibited a strong positive log-linear relationship.

• Earthquake victims are vulnerable to various mental health problems.

• In 2016, two earthquakes of 5.0 and 5.8 magnitude occurred near Ulsan, South Korea.

• We examined prescription medication changes following these earthquakes.

• These earthquakes were associated with an increase in antidepressant prescriptions.

• The increase in antidepressant prescriptions for men aged 20–39 years was highest.

• We calculated the proportion of excessive drinkers (≥44 g of ethanol) and the hazard ratios for the incidence of hypertension pre- and post-disaster.

• The proportion of excessive drinkers among women and individuals >60 years was noted to increase after the disaster in all the areas examined.

• In men, the risk of the incidence of hypertension was significantly higher, regardless of the changes in drinking status.

• In women, at-risk drinking (≥22 g of ethanol) and excessive drinking post-disaster was associated with subsequent risk of hypertension.

• Dispensing by family pharmacists was 1.37 times more likely to involve a record of prescription change than dispensing by non-family pharmacists.

• Older age, female sex, polypharmacy, and small-scale pharmacies were factors that increased the incidence proportion of pharmacist-initiated prescription changes.

• Dispensing by family pharmacists was a potential factor for pharmacist-initiated prescription change that may prevent excessive medication and interactions.

• No safe alcohol drinking limit was found for the cancer risks.

• Alcohol increases the risk of lip, oral cavity & pharynx, esophagus, colorectal, larynx, gastric, and gallbladder and biliary cancers from a light dose.

• Alcohol use was significantly associated with the risk of liver, pancreatic, and lung cancers at heavy intake.

• Reduction in heavy alcohol intake had protective effects.

• Trajectory analysis is a useful approach to alcohol drinking classification.

• The incidence of femoral shaft fracture and associations of femoral shaft fractures with bisphosphonates, selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), estrogens, calcitonins, and denosumab were assessed using National Database of Health Insurance Claims of Japan.

• We identified 7,958,655 patients (women, 88.4%; age ≥75 years, 51.2%), of whom 22,604 had femoral shaft fractures.

• Significant increases in the risk of femoral shaft fracture were observed in patients treated with alendronate, but not in patients taking other antiresorptive drugs, including denosumab.

• Further research on each type of antiresorptive drug could increase understanding of the risk of femoral shaft fracture.

• We used an innovative methodology for the identification of original publications.

• We found 7%, 8%, and 9% increased risk of breast cancer in current, former, and ever smokers, respectively.

• There are significant dose- and duration-risk relationships between tobacco smoking and breast cancer.

Volume 33, Issue 11 (November 2023)

• A high or a low dinner energy ratio was independently associated with hypertension.

• High dietary Na/K ratio was independently associated with hypertension.

• Our study observed a significant interaction between dinner energy ratio and dietary Na/K ratio on hypertension risk.

• The present study examined the trend of alcohol-related crashes among commercial truck drivers before and after the year 2011 when alcohol breath tests were introduced for commercial truck drivers.

• The annual percentage change in alcohol-related crashes was –13.5% from 2001 to 2012 among commercial truck drivers.

• No decreasing trend in alcohol-related crashes was observed afterwards despite the introduction of alcohol breath testing in 2011.

• We examined whether sleep duration and daytime napping were associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus in Japanese men and women.

• Sleep duration (≥10 hours) and daytime napping were associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus among non-overweight individuals.

• The risk of incident diabetes was approximately 2.5 times higher in nappers with long sleep duration than in non-nappers without long sleep duration.

• The last epidemiological survey in Japan on the prevalence of the rare endocrine disorders, pseudohypoparathyroidism (PHP) and nonsurgical hypoparathyroidism (NS-HypoPT), was completed in 1997.

• We conducted a nationwide cross-sectional survey to estimate the prevalence of PHP and NS-HypoPT in Japan for the year 2017.

• The results showed that the overall estimated prevalence for PHP and NS-HypoPT was 1.2 and 1.8 per 100,000 in that year, respectively, indicating an increased burden of both diseases in Japan.

• This study aimed to investigate the relationship between physical activity (leisure time and household) and all-cause mortality.

• The study cohorts were drawn from the Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging, a nationwide representative survey.

• Middle-aged and older adults with sufficient leisure-time physical activity were associated with a lower risk of mortality.

• Among people with insufficient leisure-time physical activity, performing additional household physical activity was related to lowering risk of all-cause mortality.

• This is the first study to investigate household physical activity and mortality among adults with insufficient leisure-time physical activity.

• This pooled analysis included the data of 10 population-based prospective cohort studies in Japan.

• The bladder cancer risk was linearly increased with increasing pack-years in men.

• Risk decreased with increasing years of smoking cessation in men with a significant dose-response trend.

• Former smokers with a duration of more than 10 years after smoking cessation had no significantly increased risk compared with never smokers.

Volume 33, Issue 10 (October 2023)

• Smoking by pregnant women was associated with increased lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) and gastroenteritis (GI) risk in children aged <1 year.
• Quitting smoking before or after pregnancy diagnosis without second-hand smoking (SHS) was not associated with increased risk of LRTI in children.
• Maternal SHS was associated with increased risk of otitis media, upper respiratory tract infection, LRTI, and GI in children.

• In a meta-analysis of studies in the Japan Birth Cohort Consortium (JBiCC) and JECS, smoking beyond early pregnancy was likely to increase risk of HDP.
• Smoking more than 10 cigarettes per day in early pregnancy was also associated with increased risk of HDP.
• The protective effect of maternal smoking on HDP and preeclampsia observed in other populations likely do not hold for the Japanese.

• Ordinary logistic regression has been widely used in case-cohort studies with binary outcomes, but the resultant odds-ratio estimates do not have any epidemiological interpretations except in cases where the event rate is low, in which they become approximate estimates of risk ratios.
• We provide effective multivariate analysis methods for estimating risk ratios and risk differences based on pseudo-Poisson and pseudo-normal linear regression methods in case-cohort studies. Also, we provide a computational code in R (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria) that can easily perform these methods.
• Through the analyses of the National Wilms Tumor Study data and artificially simulated data, accurate risk ratio and risk difference estimates were obtained using the proposed methods.
• The pseudo-Poisson and pseudo-normal linear regression methods offer useful tools for producing accurate epidemiological measures estimates in case-cohort studies.

• Our study examined the association between baseline body mass index (BMI) and the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) among Korean young adults who were aged 20 to 39 years in 1992 or 1994, along with metabolic mediators measured in 2002 and 2004. In both men and women, higher BMI had strong, progressive associations with ASCVD.
• We also decomposed the effects of BMI on ASCVD into total, direct, and indirect. We conceptualized the total effects as the effects from covariate-adjusted baseline BMI to ASCVD.
• High BMI in young adults was an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease in their middle age.
• High BMI increased the risk of metabolic mediators in middle age, which explain about 20–30% of the adverse effects of high BMI on ASCVD.

• We examined the association between areal deprivation and cancer incidence and cancer detection status by screening in Japan.
• There was a significant increase in the incidence of all sites and lung cancer among men and lung and cervical cancer among women in deprived areas with high areal deprivation index values.
• The incidence of advanced cancer increased significantly in deprived areas in all sites and lung in both sexes, and in the stomach and colorectum among men.
• The proportion of stomach and colorectum cancer cases detected by screening in men was significantly lower in deprived areas.
• To prevent cancer in Japan, it is necessary to combat tobacco use and human papillomavirus infection and promote early medical care for poor people.

• No validated method for converting the Japan Coma Scale (JCS) to Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) exists.
• This study developed a novel method for converting the JCS to GCS.
• This study validated a high degree of concordance between the JCS and GCS in patients visiting the emergency department.
• The conversion method can be broadly utilized by researchers conducting clinical studies adopting the JCS.

• We examined the association between vitamin K consumption and risk of lung cancer in a large and long-term prospective cohort study of Japanese men and women aged 40–79 years.
• Vitamin K consumption was inversely associated with lung cancer risk; the multivariable hazard ratio for the highest versus lowest quartiles of consumption was 0.67 (95 % confidence interval, 0.46–0.96).
• The inverse relationship appeared to be stronger in males and ever smokers.

Volume 33, Issue 9 (September 2023)

• Data are lacking on physicians’ awareness, attitudes, and concerns regarding heated tobacco products (HTPs).
• Men, younger individuals, and current smokers have higher awareness of HTPs.
• Internal medicine specialists have higher awareness of HTPs.
• Physicians experienced in HTP use were most concerned about long-term safety.
• The findings may help inform HTP regulation and clinical practice guidelines.

• A comparable proportion of low birthweight (LBW) was observed in term singleton birth as in multiple and preterm births.
• Pre-pregnancy underweight, inadequate gestational weight gain, and smoking were the modifiable factors associated with singleton term LBW.
• Continuous and accelerated efforts to end all forms of malnutrition are recommended to reduce LBW in all populations.

• We examined the association between hobby engagement and risk of incident disabling dementia identified from long-term care insurance data.
• People with hobby engagement had a lower risk of disabling dementia compared with those without it.
• For disabling dementia subtypes, hobby engagement was inversely associated with the risk of disabling dementia without a history of stroke, but not with that of post-stroke dementia.

Volume 33, Issue 8 (August 2023)

• When the exposure status is flipped in the population of interest, measures of association may be exchangeable.

• In general, if the measures of association are non-exchangeable, confounding in distribution is always present.

• In general, if the measures of association are non-exchangeable, confounding in measure may or may not be present.

• Even if the measures of association are exchangeable, there could be confounding both in distribution and in measure.

• The approach based on exchangeability of measures of association essentially does not provide a definition of confounding.

• Time-dependent changes were recorded through repeated measurements of post-dialysis weights every 6 months for ≥2 years in a large number of patients.
• The association between weight change and mortality was evaluated by exposure (landmark analysis) and outcome analysis (a time-mixed model).
• Weight loss of 1 kg per 6 months was associated with twice the hazard of mortality in hemodialysis patients.
• Deceased hemodialysis patients showed a significant trend of weight loss prior to their death, while weights of survivors were stable.
• Weight loss elucidated via serial body weight measurements every 6 months was significantly associated with a higher mortality among hemodialysis patients.

• We aimed to investigate the association between passive heating via hot-water bathing and nocturia among older adults.
• Hot-water bathing was significantly associated with lower odds of nocturia and higher single voided urine volume.
• Hot-water bathing, especially with a bath-to-bed interval of 61–160 min, was associated with lower odds of nocturia.
• The estimated decreases in night-time frequency were 0.36, 0.54, and 0.72 voids, when night-time frequency were 2, 3, and 4 voids, respectively.
• This study provides evidence that hot-water bathing in the home environment may improve nocturia.

• The proposed method apportions the burden of disease to the independent and interaction effects of each of its major risk factors and all the other factors as a whole.
• The proposed method guarantees that 100% is the total share of the burden.
• The proposed method makes the disease burden calculation simple and straightforward based on aggregate data, possibly from multiple sources.

• Mentally active sedentary behavior (MASB) was related to lower risk of dementia onset.
• MASB’s impact increased with higher amounts of physical activity (PA).
• The combination of MASB and higher PA delayed or prevented dementia onset.
• Passive sedentary behavior showed no impact on dementia at any PA level.

• We examined the applicability of the web-based 24-hour recall (24HR) dietary assessment for Japanese to large-scale epidemiological studies.
• The self-administered web-based dietary 24HR tended to require longer time for older participants and women.
• Only 10% found the system difficult in the interviewer-administered telephone-based 24HR group, whereas 60% found it difficult in the self-administered 24HR group.
• A better approach for entering cooking details and dish name selection may be necessary to be accepted as a self-administered dietary recall tool.

• The Longevity Improvement & Fair Evidence (LIFE) Study, launched in 2019, is a multi-region community-based database project.
• This study aims to generate evidence toward extending healthy life expectancy and reducing health disparities in Japan.
• The study currently stores health-related and other data from 1,420,437 residents of 18 municipalities across four prefectures.
• With coverage of all age groups and disease types, the study is expected to be a useful platform for generating real-world evidence from Japan.

Volume 33, Issue 7 (July 2023)

• We assessed pathological gaming (PG), which is a gaming disorder broadly defined using a questionnaire among elementary school children.

• The prevalence of PG was 5.6% and unhealthy lifestyles, irritability, and low functioning in school and family environments were associated with PG.

• Besides having a healthy lifestyle, parental involvement appears to be an indispensable countermeasure for PG in children.

• Very few observational studies have investigated the association between midlife intakes of the isoflavone genistein and soy foods with cognitive function assessed in late life.

• High midlife intake of the isoflavone genistein is associated with late-life cognitive impairment.

• High midlife intake of soy foods may be associated with late-life cognitive impairment.

• Combined public health impact of physical activity, dietary variety, and social interaction on incident functional disability are unclear.

• Functional disability risk was gradually reduced with increasing number of satisfying these three behaviors, in an inverse dose-response manner.

• If all participants adhered to all three behaviors, 3.6-year functional disability would reduce by 16.0% (95% confidence interval, 8.7-22.8%).

• Improving insufficient behavior elements through individual habits and preexisting social group activities may be effective in preventing disability in the community.

• Work-family conflicts were associated with a high prevalence of depression observed in many working populations all around the globe.

• Cultural differences in work and family environments could impact these associations; thus, cross-cultural studies are recommended.

• We tested this relation in a comparative, cross-cultural study of 4792 subjects of the Aichi Workers’ Cohort study and 3109 Egyptian civil workers.

• In dose-response patterns, work-family conflicts were positively associated with depression and inversely associated with ikigai.

• Ikigai, the Japanese concept of having a purpose of life, mediated the conflicts/depression association differently according to gender and population.

• The study confirms a dismal prognosis of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) particularly for current smokers.

• It shows for the first time that exposure to second-hand smoking is also associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 mortality.

• In light of the results of our study, governments and policy makers have an additional reason to strengthen and enforce effective tobacco control measures and to support quitting smoking.

• The 2015 Japan Standard Population (JSP) was established in response to changes in the age structure.

• We investigated the impact of the change in the 2015 JSP from the 1985 JSP using the best available data for population and number of deaths.

• The effect of the introduction of the 2015 JSP on interpreting trends in the all-cause mortality rate was minimal.

• Caution is needed when interpreting trends in some cause-specific mortality rates, namely those for malignant neoplasms and pneumonia/bronchitis.

• We archived all-cause and leading cause-specific age-standardized mortality rates calculated using the 2015 JSP from 1950 to 2020.

Volume 33, Issue 6 (June 2023)

Volume 33, Issue 5 (May 2023)

Volume 33, Issue 4 (April 2023)

Volume 33, Issue 3 (March 2023)

Volume 33, Issue 2 (February 2023)

Volume 33, Issue 1 (January 2023)

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