It's difficult for dysphagia patients of nutrition support using mouse. Because there is few evidence of adaptable food properties for dysphagia patients. It may be one of the causes of malnutrition. There is report that serum albumin concentration is lower in dysphagia patients.
In this study, we researched food properties for dysphagia patients in Seirei Mikatahara General Hospital. The hospital is classified the five-grade system according to adapt patients level. We selected the severely three-grade system of diet for dysphagia patients. Exactly we selected beginning diet of dysphagia 10 items and next stage (swallowing stage I) 26 items and next stage (swallowing stage II) 31 items. We investigated the textures of these stage diets.
The hardness values were suitable 2000~7000 N/m² for beginning diet of dysphagia, 1000~10000 N/m² for swallowing stage I and 12000 N/m² or less for swallowing stage II. The cohesiveness values were suitable 0.2~0.5 for beginning diet of dysphagia, 0.2~0.7 for swallowing stage I and 0.2~0.7 for swallowing stage II. The adhesiveness values were suitable 200 J/m³ or less for beginning diet of dysphagia. For swallowing stage I, the adhesiveness values were suitable 200 J/m³ or less. In addition, in case of 200~500 J/m³ of the adhesiveness values, the cohesiveness values should be about 0.4. For swallowing stage II, the adhesiveness values were suitable 300 J/m³ or less. In addition, in case of 300~800 J/m³ of the adhesiveness values, the cohesiveness values should be about 0.4. There results suggest that physical properties of classified diet for dysphagia.

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Typical sponge cakes are made from equal weight of wheat flour, whole eggs and sugar (wheat flour cake). In this paper, wheat flour was replaced with wheat starch (wheat starch cake) while keeping all other aspect of preparation the same. The specific volume of this cake was 20% greater than wheat flour cake. Observation of air cells structure in both cakes by“SEM”showed that continuous globular air cells with thinner cell walls and smaller pores were formed than for wheat flour cakes. Cubes cut from both types of sponge cakes were tested. When both cakes were compressed to 40% of their original thickness by the Creep Meter, only slight differences in recovery of thickness were observed for both types. Further, even after compressing the wheat starch cake cubes to 1/10 of their original thickness, only 90% of the initial thickness was recovered when the load was removed. The formation of such the air cell structure in the wheat starch sponge cake was proposed to proceed as follows. The starch granules in the wheat starch cake batter were distributed uniformly on the surfaces of air bubbles. Then when the sponge cake batter was baked, the air bubbles expanded and granules slightly gelatinized, keeping their same position. Therefore, the air bubbles maintained spherical pore shape, even after cooling. As a result, wheat starch sponge cake structure was shown to have significant elasticity and rheological properties.

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Udon (Japanese noodle) is one of the traditional foods in our country.
The quality of the cooked noodle depends mainly on physical properties expressed koshi (hardness and springiness), articulation and smoothness.
Therefore, the physical properties of Udons prepared under the various cooking conditions were determined by the breaking test, creep measurement and stress relaxation measurement using a rheometer and a handmade equipment. As a result of also doing the sensory evaluation, cooked Udon that was organoleptically judged to be the most delicious was soft one with a high breaking strength. By a scanning electron microscope, the gelatinization of starch near the surface of cooked Udon and the porous sponge-like structure were observed, whereas core part of the starch retained their original granular form with an adequate swelling. The cooked Udon surface seemed to form the network structure with the corrugation. This structure may be involved in the smoothness of the cooked Udon.

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Female subjects with cold intolerance complain of extreme coldness accompanied with swelling, blanching and numbness of extremities, and many related feelings of discomfort. Some disorders of microcirculation and a remarkable decrease in estrogen followed by menopause have been suspected as pathophysiological causes of cold intolerance. We have investigated the filterability of erythrocytes from premenopausal and postmenopausal subjects with cold intolerance, because disturbed microcirculation in vivo is closely related to the impaired erythrocyte filterability. The mean erythrocyte filterabilities for premenopausal subjects with cold intolerance (84.6±2.2%, n=23) and postmenopausal cases (84.8±2.3%, n=24) were significantly (p<0.001) lower than the filterability of controls (87.7±1.0%, n=9). However, there was no difference in the filterability between the premenopausal and postmenopausal subjects, suggesting that estrogen levels may not play a major role in the pathophysiology of impaired filterability and cold intolerance. Furthermore, we investigated the rheologic effects of oligomeric procyanidins (OPCs) in these subjects, because OPCs show antioxidative actions and improve microcirculation. However, there were no effects of OPCs on filterability. In conclusion, impaired filterability of erythrocytes from subjects with cold intolerance is not related to oxidative stress or lack of estrogen, but possibly to microvascular structure and function in cold intolerance.

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