We have been holding “health fairs” at pharmacies with the aim of improving lifestyle habits. It is difficult for participants to improve these habits, and support from pharmacies is required. One possible reason for this is a lack of evidence to persuade participants to improve their lifestyle habits. However, in recent years, medical big data has been developed and accumulated. The National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups of Japan (NDB) collects data on insurance medical receipts (diseases) and specific health checkups (lifestyle habits and other information for approximately 30 million people). In this study, we aimed to clarify the correlation among “lifestyle habits” (including motivation to improve) using NDB Open Data Japan. Our results suggest that people do not exercise because they have good lifestyle habits; people who have problems with their eating habits or body mass index (BMI) are more motivated to exercise, although there are differences between men and women. We also found that “being able to eat just about anything” or “eating slowly” correlated to a decrease in BMI ≥25 kg/m² and an increase in BMI 18.5 to <25 kg/m². This suggests the importance of the dental area of mastication in BMI changes. In the future, we plan to provide health support in collaboration with the dental field. Correlation and causation are different, so further study is needed, but this study shows that the NDB can be useful in health support for individuals and society.

Education regarding menstruation is provided in elementary and junior high schools under the curriculum guidelines established by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. However, in recent years, young people who have become increasingly dependent on internet searches have become prone to making simplistic self-judgments based on the incorrect information they find, including information regarding how one should address menstruation symptoms. Therefore, the present study conducted a questionnaire survey of young women to evaluate how consumers learned about appropriate self-care practices during menstruation. Three-quarters of the respondents mentioned that they first learned about menstruation during elementary school, which is the most predominant content that respondents had learned, including the mechanisms of menstruation. The number of women who had learned about the use of menstrual pain relief drugs was greater among younger generations, accounting for only 16.8% of the study population. More than half of the young women purchased over-the-counter menstrual pain relief drugs, but only 10.3% consulted with pharmacists at pharmacies before purchase. This survey revealed that approximately 30% of the women were not satisfied with the way they dealt with menstrual pain. Pharmacists, with knowledge of diseases and physiology, are expected to raise awareness of their role as accessible advisors who support self-medication and recommend medical consultation when necessary, with their expertise to help consumers practice appropriate self-care.

Purpose: To visually impress upon school students that medicine should be taken with a full glass of cool or lukewarm water as part of medical education on pharmaceuticals, we conducted an experiment in which pharmaceutical drugs were added to juice and the foaming behavior was observed.　However, the degree of foaming differed depending on the type of juice and medicine, and consistent experimental results could not be obtained. Therefore, a basic study was conducted to elucidate the selection criteria for juices and medicines suitable for this experiment. Method: 3.0 grams of reagent-grade sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO₃) was added to about 100 mL of various types of juice, and the height of the foam was measured promptly with a ruler for comparison. In addition, we added one packet of different medicines containing NaHCO₃ to grapefruit juice (GFJ), and measured the foam height for comparison. Furthermore, we conducted experiments to test 3.0-5.0 grams of food-grade NaHCO₃. We also examined their convenience, cost, and portability. Results and Discussion: The study suggested that 100% GFJ may lead to significant foaming, and this foaming volume seems to be influenced by the number of moles of acidic groups in the juice neutralized by NaOH. Higher NaHCO₃ in one packet content produced a greater amount of foam. A large amount of food-grade NaHCO₃ also increased the amount of foaming. These results led to the creation of our experiment protocol. We believe that it is possible to implement effective medical education utilizing this protocol.

Saiseikai Yokohama-shi Nanbu Hospital has been charging an additional fee for enhanced collaboration for surgical patients concerning outpatient cancer drug chemotherapy since March 2022. In this survey, we compared the number of consultations and pharmacological interventions performed by pharmacists for target and non-target departments from September 2021 to February 2022 before the calculation began, and from March to August 2022 after the calculation started. In the target department, the number of consultations was 1.5±1.3 and 8.1±4.8 per day for before and after the calculation began, respectively, showing a significant increase (P<0.001). The number of pharmacological interventions increased from 35 preoperatively to 66 postoperatively. However, in the non-target departments, there was no change in the number of consultations and pharmacological interventions between before and after the calculation started. The results suggest that the additional fee for enhanced collaboration effectively enables pharmacists to continuously intervene in pharmacological problems.