Objectives To investigate tendencies in body weight and several laboratory data including plasma glucose and plasma lipids subsequent to smoking cessation.
Design A case-control study.
Setting and Participants Subjects consisted of 240 consecutive males 6 to 18 months after smoking cessation, who consulted our institute for health screening between October 2004 and February 2005.
Measurement and Results We compared quantitative changes in data pre and post smoking cessation in quitters with annual data in current smokers. The variables examined were: body weight (BW), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), fasting plasma glucose (FPG), total cholesterol (TC), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), triglyceride (TG), uric acid (UA), aspartate acid aminotransferase (AST), and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) . Positive changes in BW, SBP, DBP, FPG, TC, HDL-C, LDL-C, UA, and AST for quitters were significantly higher than those for current smokers. However, only a positive change in HDL-C for the group of the lowest change in body weight by quartile, which included all of the patients showing almost weight loss, was significantly more than one for current smoker. In opposition, positive changes in all variables for quitters who gained 1.8 kg or more were significantly higher than those in current smokers.
Conclusions We consider that physicians should provide sufficient social guidance including diet and exercise advice to suppress weight gain subsequent to smoking cessation.

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The number of people with hypercholesterolemia is increasing in Japan. It has been known by experience at health checks that the total cholesterol levels of persons with hypercholes-terolemia decrease when they stop to eat eggs and drink milk. A comparison was conducted on the levels of total cholesterol and triglyceride according to the condition of taking eggs and milk, mostly of those who stopped to take them for more than a week. Those were 78 subjects, 65 subjects who stopped to take them, 7 subjects who continued to take them and 6 subjects who did not take them. The total cholesterol levels of 65 subjects decreased by 32±6.4 mg/dl of the 95% confidence interval, and also decreased by 29±6.0 mg/dl of it without 21 subjects who took cholesterol-lowering drugs after stopping to take eggs and milk. The levels of total cholesterol of 7 subjects and 6 subjects did not change significantly. Hypercholesterolemia is influenced by dietary cholesterol typically by taking eggs and milk in many Japanese.

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Objective The present study was conducted to assess the relationship between serum C-reactive protein (CRP) level and obesity indices in Japanese residents.
Design A population-based cross sectional study
Setting and Subjects The subjects were 161 males and 337 females, aged 40-79 years who attended a health examination screening in a rural area of Hokkaido, Japan. They had no history of stroke, hypertension, coronary heart disease, diabetes mellitus, cancer, or liver and kidney disorders.
Main Outcome Measures Association of obesity indices including Body mass index (BMI), waist and hip circumferences, waist hip ratio (WHR), and percent body fat with serum CRP level by gender.
Results All obesity indices, excluding males' hip circumference, were significantly and positively correlated with logtransformed serum CRP level. When we adjusted for confounding factors, the odds ratio (OR) of obesity indices for high serum CRP level, high groups of percent body fat, and WHR was significant in both genders. In females, subjects with high BMI and waist circumference also had significantly high OR for CRP level. Moreover, after additionally adjusting for BMI, OR was significantly higher in subjects with large WHR, compared with low WHR in males, but it was not significant in females. BMI is the strongest predictor of high serum CRP level in females.
Conclusions There was gender difference in the association between serum CRP level and obesity indices.

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In the past decade, functional imaging with ¹⁸F-fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG) positron emissiooooon tomography (PET) has been the faster growing diagnostic modality in clinical oncology and oncologic research. Whole-body ¹⁸F-FDG PET has spread in cancer screening in Japan and improves the rate of detection of malignancies in cancer screening, although, ¹⁸F-PET lacks precise anatomical information and may cause some false positive and false negative results. In 2004, a combined PET/CT scanner was introduced in Japan and enables the fusion of functional PET images and anatomical CT images within a single examination. Large studies abroad demonstrated PET/CT fusion imaging had the potential to improve the sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy of malignancies. No whole-body cancer screening using the new combined PET/CT scanner has been reported in Japan. In this study, cancer screening with ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT was performed.
Subjects A total of 244 asymptomatic Japanese subjects were screened by ¹⁸F-FDG whole-body PET/CT, between August 2004 and January 2005, in our Medical Imaging Centre, MIC. A PET/CT, Discovery LS, was used for cancer screening one hour after ¹⁸F-FDG 5 mCi injection. The results of the whole-body PET/CT image were evaluated to three grades of malignancies, from high suspicion of malignancies, M1, moderate suspicion, M2 to low suspicion, M3. The cases evaluated with M1 grade were followed clinically.
Results Satisfactory fusion images were obtained in whole-body ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT. Eight subjects, 3.27% of total 244 subjects, were evaluated as high suspicion malignancies, M1 grade. Six cases of eight were diagnosed as malignancies. Three cases of six malignancies were recurrences of malignancies. Others were one malignant lymphoma, lung cancer and breast cancer. With the exception of recurrent cases, detection ratio of malignancy was 1.23% in this cancer screening. Whole-body PET/CT clearly demonstrated localizations of malignancies and metastatic lesions in a single screening.
Discussion Whole-body PET/CT cancer screening appears to be superior to CT and PET alone in cancer detection, localization and staging of malignancies. Further studies on cancer screening using whole-body PET/CT should be conducted to clarify the value of early cancer detection and clinical effectiveness of PET/CT cancer screening.

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Anemia is a basic disease associated with various serious pathological conditions. Thus, effectively screening or monitoring patients for anemia is a critical issue for the World Health Organization. The recently developed Astrim SU, is a portable, noninvasive monitoring device for hemoglobin. In the present study, we investigated the efficacy and validity of the device for measuring basic items including hemoglobin and screening for anemia. Our data demonstrated the usefulness and applicability of the device in diverse clinical circumstances.

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Objective To demonstrate the correlation of six healthy habits with uric acid levels.
Methods Our mnemonic or motto for promoting healthy habits is“None of one, Less of two, More of three.”The one thing that is to be given up is smoking. The two things that are to be reduced are intake of food and alcohol. The three things that are to be increased are exercise, rest and enjoyable activities.
Subjects A questionnaire recording compliance with this motto was completed by 5584 Japanese male subjects undergoing medical health check-ups. Serum uric acid was measured. The subjects under medication were excluded.
Results Serum uric acid level decreased significantly in relation to the number of healthy habits practiced (381.0μmol/l for one, 371.9 for two, 367.0 for three, 362.8 for four, 356.7 for five, and 355.4 for six) .
Conclusion Practicing these six healthy habits contributes to the prevention of hyperuricemia.

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Objectives The aimm of the present study was to investigate the relationship between cardiovascular autonomic balance and various factors of the metabolic syndrome.
Method and Results 2302 Japanese adults working abroad were divided to age-matched three groups according to resting heart rate (HR) ; 516 subjects in the bradycardia group: [B] (HR≤60.0/min.), 1529 subjects in the normal heart rate group: [N] (60.0/min.<HR<80.0/min.) and 257 subjects in the tachycardia group: [T] (HR≥80.0/min.), respectively. The levels of systolic blood pressure (S-BP), diastolic (D-BP), pulse pressure (PP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), fasting plasma glucose (FPG), fasting plasma insulin (FIRI) and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in the [T] were significantly higher than those in the [B] and the [N] ; HOMA-IR: 1.42 ( [B] : p<0.0001), 1.69 ( [N] : p<0.01), 1.91 ( [T] ), respectively. Furthermore, the levels of pancreas-β function (HOMA-β) and plasma total cholesterol (T-chol), triglyceride (TG), aspartate transaminase (AST), alanine transferase (ALT) and γ-glutamyltranspeptidase (γ-GPT) in the [B] were significantly lower than those in the other. The levels of QRS axis were significantly higher in the [B] than those in the others. However, the levels of ratecorrected QT (QT c) were significantly higher in the [T] than those in the others. HR was a significantly positive correlation with HOMA-IR, T chol, TG, S-BP, D-BP, PP, MAP, ALT, AST, ALT, γ-GPT, FPG, FIRI and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) values in all subjects, and a significantly negative correlation with physical activities.
Conclusion The HR was important precursor for the metabolic syndrome in healthy adults working abroad.

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