In the physical screening for the clinical diagnosis of hyperlipemia, total cholesterol values are used rather than total serum lipid values.
A simplified method for total serum lipid determination using the sulfo-phospho-vanillin reaction has recently been employed in clinical laboratories. The sum of total cholesterol, triglyceride, and phospholipid was proposed by Cheek, summation method 1, and this method is used to determine the total serum lipid values for the clinical test.
We evaluated the total serum lipid values in hyperlipemia by the sulfo-phospho-vanillin reaction method, summation method 1, and another method, summation method 2, in which each value for total cholesterol, triglyceride, and phospholipid are summed.
Results:
1) The sulfo-phospho-vanillin reaction method shows the specific reaction to higher unsaturated fatty acids but not to saturated fatty acids. Total serum lipid values measured by gravimetry and oxidometry show good correlations when this method is used.
2) The mean value of total serum lipid determined by summation method 1 is in good agreement with the values from gravimetry and oxidometry.
3) The values obtained by summation method 2 are about 15% lower than those obtained by the standard method, gravimetry.
4) In the diagnosis of hyperlipemia the sensitivity is 72.3% in the sulfo-phospho-vanillin reaction method, 71.1% in summation method 1, and 78.0% in summation method 2.
We concluded that the values determined by the sulfo-phospho-vanillin reaction method, and the lipid-summation methods proposed by Cheek and developed by us are useful for the physical screening of hyperlipemia.

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Yahito Kotake^{1, 2)} has shown that rats continuously fed a high fat and high protein diet contracted diabetes and excreted xanthurenic acid (XA). His coworker has taken urine samples from 23 human diabetics and concentrated them. After separating the urine components with solvent on paper chromatography, he identified XA with diazo, by Millon's reaction and by the ferric sulfate test. XA was detected in most diabetic urine, but not in normal urine, which suggests that there is a significant relationship between XA and diabetes. But the existence of diabetics who do not excrete XA in their urine also has been noticed.
Thus, we needed to clarify clinically the rate at which usual diabetic patients excrete XA. XA is known to be produced when there is a deficiency of vitamin B₆. Therefore when patients excrete XA in their urine, the administration of vitamin B₆ may have a therapeutic effect.
In cases of mild or middle grade diabetics, only 30-50% of the patients excreted XA in their urine, but if they were loaded with tryptophan the ratio would increase. We believe that there are some diabetics whose tryptophan metabolism is distorted, since their excretion rate of XA in urine is much higher than that of healthy individuals. Whether these diabetic patients have a shortage of vitamin B₆ or there is a decrease in the change of vitamin B₆ to the active form, pyridoxal phosphate, is discussed.

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An elevated plasma sialic acid concentration was found in rabbits and rats associated with triglyceridemia induced by cobalt chloride administration. Acrylamide gel electrophoresis of the serum from rabbits treated with cobalt chloride showed augmentation of the band corresponding to haptoglobin.
Serum haptoglobin levels were determined with cellulose acetate electrophoresis, and were found to increase in cobalt treated rabbits and rats.

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To determine effects of low intensity magnetic fields on biological processes, reproduction studies were made with CFW strain mice. Pairs of mice were exposed to static magnetic fields of intensities of 300 Oe and 800 Oe from the beginning of mating to the end of weaning. The offspring were kept until eight weeks old in the fields, but succeeding generations were all mated free of the fields. In the 800 Oe magnetic field the gestation period, the rate and number of live births, birth weight and growth were all retarded in comparison to the controls. In the 300 Oe field live births, birth weight, and growth were slightly depressed. Residual effects lasted for three generations especially for 800 Oe series.
These results were related to safety standards for continuous whole body exposure to magnetic fields.

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Effects of starvation and cobalt injection on lipid metabolism were studied in isolated liver cells from three groups of animals; normally fed, starved and starved plus cobalt-treated rats and rabbits.
The nutritional state of the rat has a profound influence on the total conversion of palmitate to fatty acid esters and ketone bodies. Starvation of rats markedly decreased the esterification of palmitate into triglycerides and significantly increased oxidation into ketone bodies. Starvation of rabbits, scarcely affected the esterification and oxidation of added palmitate.
Enhanced esterification of labelled palmitate into triglyceride was shown by isolated liver cells from cobalt-treated rabbits, whereas liver cells from cobalt-treated rats were characterized by increased conversion of added palmitate to phospholipids and by decreased ketogenesis. A marked elevation in blood ketone bodies concentration in starved rabbits and its suppresion by cobalt treatment coincides with the alteration of ketone body formation in liver cells from rats, in which ketogenesis was increased by starvation and suppressed by cobalt treatment.
Cobalt added to the incubation medium did not affect the esterification and oxidation of palmitate in the isolated liver cells from three groups of animals.
Secretion of triglyceride from the isolated liver cells was completely suppressed when cobalt was added to the incubation medium, whereas secretion of acetoacetate from the cells was unaffected by the added cobalt.
These results indicate that cobalt added to the incubation medium affects neither the lipid metabolism in isolated liver cells nor the secretion of acetoacetate from the cells, but that it completely inhibits the secretion of triglyceride.

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The effects of heavy metal compounds (MnCl₂⋅Mn(CH₃COO)₂⋅PbCl₂⋅Pb(CH₃COO)₂⋅CdCl₂⋅Cd (CH₃COO)₂⋅HgCl₂⋅K₂Cr₂O₇) on cell division in Paramecium tetraurelia were investigated. Cells used in the present experiments had previously induced autogamy; they were vigorous and divided about 8 times in 40 hours at 25°C. In a cell population that had been reproduced from a cell isolated two days before, nine cells (control group) were isolated and placed in normal medium and groups of six cells (experimental groups) were isolated and placed in media that contained heavy metals at different concentrations. Cultures were then incubated at 25°C for two days, then the number of cell divisions was counted.
The number of cell divisions was gradually reduced at concentrations of manganese more than 100μM, of lead more than 30μM, of cadmium more than 2μM, of mercury more than 2μM, and of chromium (VI) more than 10μM. These concentrations of Pb, Cr (VI) and Cd are nearly the same to as the standard concentrations allowed in drainage in Japan. This suggests that the cell of paramecium can be used to test the toxicity of heavy metals.

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In geographic epidemiology, distributions of the categorized mortality or morbidity rates are visualized on maps. Visual study, however, by no means proves whether geographic aggregations occur by chance alone. We have developed a test of significance to assess the deviation from chance expectations of geographic patterns actually observed and have described it in this paper. The significance is tested by comparing the observed number of adjacent areas having concordant category pairs with the number obtained by a simulation based on the Monte Carlo method.
The test was applied to illustrations of geographic patterns of the categorized mortality from esophageal, stomach, and lung cancers in Japan, 1969-1971. For esophageal cancer, high mortality was significantly clustered in both sexes, and low mortality in males. For stomach cancer, both high and low mortality was significantly aggregated in both sexes. Low lung cancer mortality showed significant geographic aggregations in males.
Some prerequisites for the proper use of the test, the characteristics of the random numbers generated, the changeable significance levels, and the methodological alternative are discussed. The test is applicable not only to geographic epidemiology, but also to other scientific fields where an investigator is concerned with geographic clusters of variables or events.

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