Objective We calculated age- and sex-dependent reference intervals for 10 variables on the basis of health examination data of 156, 565 individuals in Shizuoka prefecture of Japan. We compared these reference intervals with age- and sex-dependent reference intervals calculated from two other large scale studies across the country populations.
Design and Setting Data were obtained from three laboratories, and intervals were calculated by revised Hoffmanns fitting method. On the other hand, Shibata et al. calculated, by a non-linear optimization method (NLO), age- and sex-dependent reference intervals in 5-year age-based increments from data obtained approximately 750, 000 reference individuals from 45 laboratories all around of Japan Moreover, Suka et al. representing the Japan Association of Health Service (JAHS) established reference intervals and collected data from approximately 2.7 million individuals from metropolitan and branch offices in all prefectures of Japan with the basis of NCCLS criteria. We compared with these three large scale age- and sex-dependent reference intervals each others.
Results Reference intervals for all subjects were similar between three studies and especially the serum total cholesterol, uric acid and fasting blood sugar, albumin and lactate dehydrogenase were closely coincided between our study and the other two large scale studies. Levels of serum alkaline phosphatase and postmenopausal increases in this enzyme were similar between our study and Shibata's study.
Conclusion Our findings indicate that if compatibility between laboratories can be established by external quality control analysis, reliable reference intervals could be obtained in large-scale cooperative studies, and the use of these reference intervals by multiple laboratories would be possible.

View full abstract

Objectives To investigate the influence of weight gain on pulmonary function.
Design A cross-sectional study and a case-control study as a longitudinal study.
Setting and Participants Subjects consisted of 3, 611 males who consulted our institute for health screening, including 847 smokers.
Measurement and Results In the cross-sectional study, we compared percent vital capacity (%VC) and forced expiratory volume % in first second (FEV_1.0%) among 5 BMI groups. And we also compared %VC and FEV_1.0% among subjects with 3 smoking statuses; non-smoker, ex-smoker, and current smoker. In the longitudinal study, we investigated the relationship between annual changes in body weight and pulmonary function, then the changing values for pulmonary function pre and post smoking cessation in quitters were compared with annual data from current smokers. Multiple linear regression analyses were added in both studies.
As a result, weight gain tended to promote decreased %VC in both studies. However, there was a difference between the two studies in the relation between body weight and FEV_1.0%. In the comparison between smoking status and pulmonary function, there were no obvious differences in %VC among the three smoking statuses. In the cross-sectional study, FEV_1.0% for non-smokers was significantly higher than that for ex-smokers, and FEV_1.0% for ex-smokers was significantly higher than that for current smokers. However, annual changes in the status after smoking cessation did not show significant variation in FEV_1.0%.
Conclusions We consider that weight gain promotes decreased %VC.

View full abstract

The aim of this study was to clarify the effects of metabolic syndrome on benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) by use of transabdominal ultrasonography in healthy males, the subjects of this study were 333 Japanese men. All subjects were divided to two groups; 146 subjects in the smaller group (prostatic anteroposterior size<28.0 mm, mean age; 45.3yrs) and 187 subjects in the larger group (prostatic anteroposterior size ≥28.0 mm, mean age; 51.3yrs), respectively. The levels of age, systolic blood pressure (S-BP), diastolic blood pressure (D-BP), fasting insulin (FIRI), plasma triglyceride (TG), γ-glutamyltranspeptidase (γ-GPT), Fe, plasma prostate-special antigen (PSA), insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and pancreas β cell function (HOMA-β) were significantly higher in the larger group than those in the smaller group, however plasma high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-ch) level was significantly lower in the larger group than that in the smaller group. The prostatic anteroposterior size was significantly and positively related with age (r=0.31, p<0.0001), HOMA-IR (r=0.14, p=0.027), body mass index (r=0.10, p=0.049), S-BP (r=0.11, p=0.046) and D-BP (r=0.12, p=0.032) in all subjects. These data firstly indicated that metabolic syndrome was as a risk factor for developing BPH, secondly revealed that the transabdominal ultrasonography was able to use as the standard clinical tool for the useful assessment of prostatic size in daily medical health examinations.

View full abstract

The general judgment which is due to the continual accumulation of the health evaluation showing is necessary for first prevention of the Life-style related disease living habitude ill. For its purpose, the showing of the high clinical inspection of the stable precision becomes indispensable.
As for conventional clinical inspection's precision management, a main checkpoint was the precision of the analysis. However, with the offer of the reagent and the standard material that is manufactured by the improvement of the automation of the analysis equipment and the managed factory production, the reliability with analysis process management and measurement value was reputed.
The monitor feature and the precision management are necessary frequently to automate and to manage the process of the reliability.
In the investigation of a lot of wide area large-scale external quality control survey, which is implemented at present, it is implemented once in 1 year.
We implemented a sample distribution once for every 3 months in the doing to implement in as a lot of number of times as possible. It adopts gradation material and it reports the material of the precision management investigation because it implemented for 10 of precision management by the Japanese of the Japanese for the Japanese.

View full abstract