To investigate whether exercise is beneficial for prevention against aging or not, serum lipoperoxide, considered to promote aging, was measured in male students before and after taking part in a traning camp of Kendo (including 4 km running a day). The results obtained were as follows. 1) The distance which the students could run in 12 minutes after the training camp was significantly longer than that before the training camp. 2) Serum lipoperoxide levels in the students soon after the trainng camp were significantly lower than those before the training camp. However, there were no significant differences in serum lipoperoxide levels between before and 1 month after the training camp. 3) Serum total cholesterol, β-lipoprotein, HDL-cholesterol, trigliceride and uric acid levels in the students did not change significantly following the taming camp of Kendo. From these results, it can be considered that the training camp of Kendo in this study was beneficial not only for promotion of stamina but also for prevention against aging.

View full abstract

In order to know the interaction of physical symptom and psychological health of daughter-in-law and those of mother-in-law living together in the same household, an attempt was made to apply a self-administered health questionnaire, the Todai Health Index (THI), to 36 daughters-in-law, who have twenty to twenty five-year-old daughters, and the paired mothers-in-law. Two female control groups were sampled of the same generation of mother-in-law (control A) and daughter-in-law (control B), who live in the suburbs of three big cities. Twelve scales and two discriminant function values (DF values) of THI are as follows: SUSY, subjective symptoms; RESP, respiratory; EYSK, eye and skin; MOUT, mouth and anus; DICE, digestion; IMPU, impulsiveness; LISC, lie; MENT, mental instability; DEPR, depression; AGGR, aggressiveness; NERV, nervousness; LIFE, irregularity of life; PSD, psychosomatic; NEURO, neurosis. The mean scores of SUSY, RESP, EYSK, DEPR, PSD and NEURO of daughter-in-law are significantly lower than those of mother-in-law, which are mainly on the decrease of those in daughter-in-law, and AGGR of daughter-in-law is significantly higher than that of mother-in-law. There are significant correlations of IMPU, DEPR, NERV, PSD and NEURO, which are on the psychological scales, between daughter-in-law and mother-inlaw. While there are no significant correlations of twelve scales and two DF values between control A and B. For daughter-in-law and mother-in-law, living together in the same household for a few decades gives a better influence on the health of the both.

View full abstract

The rate of taking community health examinations has been steadily increasing. In 1985 it reached to 25.5 percent. This, however, is still considered to be a low figure. The present study addresses this issue of low reception rate of community health examinations. The purpose of the study is to indicate factors associated with the low reception rate of community health examinations. A questionnaire survey was conducted in a community of approximately 6, 000 population in Kumamoto Prefecture.Questionnaires were sent to the objects who were those not undergoing the community health examinations during past 4 years, asking them about their reasons for not taking the examinations. The findings include: 1) There were 559 males and 547 females who had not taken examinations; 2) Approximately 7 percent of non-recepients were away from home or missing; 3) There were 9 reasons cited for not taking exams. Reasons such as "Had checkups at workplace", "Receiving medical check-ups or care from hospitals or other institutions", "Receiving treatment for high blood pressure, heart desease, etc." represent 67 percent of these reasons; 4) There were sex differences in some of these reasons; 5) Some of relationships between reasons for not taking exams and intending to take exames in near future were understandable, while some were not quite; 6) A combination between the reason "Have confidence in health" and the intention of "Hope so that take community exams" was observed in relation to marital status. The study indicates there are two kinds of factors affecting the low reception rate of community health examinations. One is the examinational institution, and the other is associated with the inhabitants themselves. Through this study, the following were obtained: The objects of community health examinations were needed to be clearly difined, selected and reconsidered the way of calculating the reception rate by institution. As for community inhabitants themselves it appears that their medical conditions may have significant influence on their low rate of examinations.

View full abstract

Prevalence of subjective complaints by age was surveyed of 3389 adult women applied by a general health questionnaire-the Todai Health Index (THI). The women were sampled from the residents in the area around the Haneda, Osaka, and Fukuoka Airports excepted the noisy area of WECPNL being 90 or over. The recovery rate of the mail survey was 52%. Out of the recovered, 85.4% were married. All the subject were classified into 11 age groups at every five years of age. The positive response rate to each question, the mean values of 12 scale scores, and 3 discriminant values were compared among the age groups. And these data were also compared with male employee groups of a trading company and old gentlemen by the present coauthors. The results were as follows: 1) Women had higher scores in the scales and discriminant functions than men; Vague Complaints, Eye and Skin, Mouth and Anus, Psychosomatic disease, and Neurosis. 2) Women in their late twenties had lower scores in the scales; Vague Complaints, Respiratory Complaints, Eye and Skin, Mental Instabilty, Depressiveness, Psychosomatic disease, and Neurosis. These were different from those of men. 3) Women between their late forties and early fifties had highest scores in the same scales and seemed most unstable, which could be related with the climacteric and/or empty nest syndrome. 4) Women in their early seventies showed lower scale scores in most scales, which might be a result of the decreased sensitivity to the environmental stimuli. 5) The scale scores of Respiratory Complaints and the Lie increased according to the age, in contrast to the scale scores of Impulsiveness and Irregularity of Daily Life which decreased with aging. 6) For the middle aged women the scale scores of Aggressiveness were on the increase, but on the decrease for men. These results of a cross-sectional survery tells that the changes of THI scale scores by age could throw light on the characteristics of turning points of female life cycle.

View full abstract

Infant mortality rate is a very often used parameter to measure health status and socioeconomic progress of a community or population. The progress of the health and environmental condition can be measured spatially or temporally. The bias introduced by using the infant mortality rate without considering the differences in data collection of the health administrations in various countries can be corrected partially with a simple method. Especially when using the infant mortality rate for international studies, this bias should be corrected. Whenever the health condition of a country is to be analyzed, several parameters are basically used. Among them, the crude death rate was the first to be criticized for its lack of definition when used without adjusting to sex and age at least, if specific age rates cannot be obtained. Life expectancy also used widely, seems to be an incomplete parameter, if not accompanied by other attributes, like sex and age. That is to say, the wonder that the statistical analysis of health parameters offer to us, appear when the differences blossom, and classifications can be made. But the differences, especially if they are too glamorous, must be analyzed for the reasons at every step of the elaboration of the final data. This is especially important when comparing parameters from different countries, because what is meant at official level, is hard to be kept in normal practice. Much more difficult for the health administrations is to point out the origin of the difference of criteria in order to correct it, mainly due to the routine that generally is associated with data collection work. Considering the domestic comparison of data of a country through different periods as an isolated fact, the analysis of the differences is not strongly affected by external errors, because the existing bias, if any, is always constant, and of identic origin. When comparing cross-sectional data from an international point of view, these bias constitute the biggest handicap, and unless we are able to identify the origin, and perform a correction method, erroneous conclusions can be suspected. It has already been reported by several authors (Fedrick & Butler, 1972, and Anderson, 1981) the underregistration and miss-classification of mortality statistics derived from the "first day", "first week", "first month", and "first year" period considerations, that is, bias introduced in the origin of elaboration, which can be called primary step bias. A secondary step bias remains in the handling of already published information, derived from errors in textbooks or software packages (Bland & Altman, 1988, and Clarke & Whitfield, 1978) or from the different quality control established in health administrations (for example, in the WHO Statstics Annual 1987, still countries present data of 1980, while nearly 50% report from 1984). Still a terciary step bias is introduced by the consideration of the published data without correction for further analysis. This fact also has been recently reported (hurray, 1988).

View full abstract