Background: In Japan, large-scale epidemiological studies on starch and sugar intake are scarce, mainly due to a lack of a suitable assessment tool. We examined the relative validity of two widely-used dietary assessment questionnaires for Japanese adults, the comprehensive Diet History Questionnaire (DHQ) and the brief DHQ (BDHQ), for estimating the intake of starch and 10 types of sugars: total sugar, sucrose, maltose, lactose, trehalose, glucose, fructose, galactose, and added and free sugars.

Methods: A total of 92 women and 92 men completed 4-day weighed dietary records (DRs) besides the DHQ and BDHQ in each of the four seasons. For each method, starch and sugar intake was calculated according to a recently developed food composition database on starch and sugars for Japanese food items.

Results: For most of the carbohydrate variables examined, the median energy-adjusted intake derived from the first DHQ and BDHQ (DHQ1 and BDHQ1, respectively) significantly differed from those derived from the 16-day DRs in both sexes. Spearman correlation coefficients between the 16-day DRs and DHQ1 were acceptable (≥0.31) for all variables (0.31–0.67), except for maltose and trehalose in women (≤0.29). For BDHQ1, the correlations were also acceptable for all variables (0.32–0.64), except for maltose (≤0.26) and galactose (≤0.06). Similar results were observed for the mean of four DHQs and BDHQs.

Conclusions: This study indicated a reasonable ranking ability of DHQ and BDHQ for the intake of starch and most sugars examined, despite a poor ability to estimate the intake at the both group and individual levels.

Backgrounds: Current guidelines recommend routine nephropathy monitoring, including microalbuminuria or proteinuria testing, for people with diabetes mellitus; however, its effect in terms of preserving renal function remains unclear. We conducted this study to examine the impact of routine nephropathy monitoring on subsequent changes in estimated glomerular filtration rate.

Methods: We retrospectively identified non-elderly individuals with diabetes mellitus based on the prescription of hypoglycemic agents from a large Japanese database (JMDC, Tokyo, Japan) of screening for lifestyle diseases linked with administrative claims data. We collected data on baseline characteristics including age, sex, comorbidity, and laboratory data. We then examined the association between routine nephropathy monitoring results and change in estimated glomerular filtration rate using a propensity-score inverse probability of treatment weighting method.

Results: Among 1,602 individuals who started taking hypoglycemic agents between 2005 and 2016, 102 (6.0%) underwent routine nephropathy monitoring during the first year of medication for diabetes mellitus. After adjusting for multiple confounding factors, there was no significant difference in subsequent estimated glomerular filtration rate changes between individuals with and without routine nephropathy monitoring (difference in percent change 0.11; 95% confidence interval −2.74 to 2.95).

Conclusion: Routine nephropathy monitoring was not associated with preserved renal function. Current recommendations for the universal application of nephropathy monitoring may have limited value to prevent renal dysfunction in non-elderly individuals with diabetes mellitus.

Background: Population ageing and stringent licensing policies will increase the number of older drivers who stop driving. Adverse health outcomes owing to driving cessation and their prevention are emerging concerns. Therefore, we longitudinally examined the impact of driving cessation and alternative transportation use after cessation on the risk of functional limitations in a cohort of community-dwelling people (65 years and older) in Japan.

Methods: Using cohort data of those who drove as of 2006/07, we compared the risk of functional limitations between 2,704 current drivers and 140 former drivers (who stopped driving by 2010). Of the former drivers, 77 did not use public transportation or bicycles after driving cessation (thus losing independent mobility). We calculated the hazard ratios (HRs) for the incidence of functional limitations with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) based on the Cox proportional hazards model with the covariates influencing the functional limitations.

Results: From 2010 through 2016, 645 people had functional limitations, which included 38, 82, and 119 per 1,000 person-years among current drivers, former drivers who used public transportation or bicycles, and former drivers who were only driven by others, respectively (HR 1.69; 95% CI, 1.15–2.49 and HR 2.16; 95% CI, 1.51–3.10, relative to current drivers).

Conclusion: Driving cessation is associated with an increased risk of functional limitations among older adults, but this risk might be alleviated if they are able to maintain independent mobility using public transportation or bicycles after driving cessation.

Background: Depression in elderly people is a major global concern around the world. Epidemiological evidence of the association of beverages with depressive symptoms has received research attention; however, epidemiological studies on the association of coffee and green tea consumption with depressive symptoms among the elderly population are limited. The objective of this study is to cross-sectionally examine the association of depressive symptoms with the intake of coffee, green tea, and caffeine and to verify the antidepressant effect of caffeine.

Methods: The subjects were 1,992 women aged 65–94 years. Intakes of coffee, green tea, and caffeine, as well as depressive symptoms, were assessed with a validated brief dietary history questionnaire (BDHQ) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), respectively. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for depressive symptoms with adjustments for potential confounders.

Results: Coffee intake was associated with a lower prevalence of depressive symptoms, the ORs of which for the 4th versus the 1st quartiles of intake was 0.64 (95% CI, 0.46–0.88, P for trend = 0.01) in a fully adjusted model. Caffeine intake was marginally associated with depressive symptoms, but the association was not statistically significant (OR 0.75; 95% CI, 0.55–1.02, P for trend = 0.058).

Conclusion: The result suggests that the inverse association of coffee intake with depressive symptoms might be associated with not only caffeine intake but also some other substances in coffee or factors related to coffee intake. Because of the cross-sectional design of the present study, longitudinal studies are required to confirm the present finding.

Background: Establishment of an unbiased association between gestational weight gain (GWG) and perinatal health is urgently needed in China, which has the largest population in the world. Our study aimed to create weight-gain-for-gestational-age charts using early pregnancy body mass index (BMI) to present selected percentiles of GWG in China.

Methods: A population-based follow-up study was conducted based on the Maternal and Newborn Health Monitoring System, which recruited 132,835 pregnant women between October 2013 and September 2016 in 12 districts/counties of 6 provinces in China. Multilevel analyses and restricted cubic splines were performed to model the longitudinal repeated maternal weight gain measurements and obtain smoothed curves for GWG. The internal and external validation of each model was also assessed.

Results: To develop models of GWG, 34,288 women were included. Smoothed percentiles of GWG in the 3rd, 10th, 50th, 90th, and 97th percentiles were estimated for each week of gestation. The median figures for GWG were 15.0 kg, 14.4 kg, 13.5 kg, and 12.1 kg in underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese women, respectively, at 40 weeks. Of all the weight measurements, more than 70% and 95% fell within the expected 1 to 2 standard deviations, respectively. To accomplish external validation of the models, 20,458 women were included. The specificities of measurements in the 5th, 10th, 15th, 25th, 75th, 85th, 90th, and 95th percentiles in four BMI categories were between 90% and 100%.

Conclusions: The population-based gestational weight gain Z-score charts performed well in providing guidance regarding expected gestational weight gain in Chinese women.

Background: This study examines trends and geographic disparities in the diagnosis, treatment, and control of hypertension in China and investigates the association between regional factors and hypertension care.

Methods: Blood pressure data and data relating to health care for hypertension were used for this study. The data were sourced from baseline and follow-up surveys of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, which was conducted in 2011, 2013, and 2015. To estimate the geographical disparities in diagnosis, treatment, and control of hypertension, random-effects models were also applied after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics.

Results: Among hypertensive individuals in China, the trends showed decreases in undiagnosed, untreated, and uncontrolled hypertension: 44.1%, 51.6%, and 80.7% in 2011; 40.0%, 47.4%, and 77.8% in 2013; and 31.7%, 38.0%, and 71.4% in 2015, respectively. The number of undiagnosed, untreated, and uncontrolled hypertensive residents living in urban areas in 2015 was more than 10% lower than the number in rural areas and among rural-to-urban immigrant individuals in China. The poorest socio-economic regions across China were 8.5 times more likely to leave their residents undiagnosed, 2.8 times more likely to leave them untreated, and 2.6 times more likely to leave hypertension uncontrolled.

Conclusions: Although China has made impressive progress in addressing regional inequalities in hypertension care over time, it needs to increase its effort to reduce geographic disparities and to provide more effective treatments and higher quality care for patients with hypertension.

Background: The World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) to be a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Large-scale monitoring for capturing the current epidemiological situation of COVID-19 in Japan would improve preparation for and prevention of a massive outbreak.

Methods: A chatbot-based healthcare system named COOPERA (COvid-19: Operation for Personalized Empowerment to Render smart prevention And care seeking) was developed using the LINE app to evaluate the current Japanese epidemiological situation. LINE users could participate in the system either though a QR code page in the prefectures’ websites or a banner at the top of the LINE app screen. COOPERA asked participants questions regarding personal information, preventive actions, and non-specific symptoms related to COVID-19 and their duration. We calculated daily cross correlation functions between the reported number of infected cases confirmed using polymerase chain reaction and the symptom-positive group captured by COOPERA.

Results: We analyzed 206,218 participants from three prefectures reported between March 5 and 30, 2020. The mean age of participants was 44.2 (standard deviation, 13.2) years. No symptoms were reported by 96.93% of participants, but there was a significantly positive correlation between the reported number of COVID-19 cases and self-reported fevers, suggesting that massive monitoring of fever might help to estimate the scale of the COVID-19 epidemic in real time.

Conclusions: COOPERA is the first real-time system being used to monitor trends in COVID-19 in Japan and provides useful insights to assist political decisions to tackle the epidemic.