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The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between mobile phone use and insomnia and depression in adolescents. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 295 high school students aged 15–19 in Japan. Insomnia and depression were assessed using Athene Insomnia Scales (AIS) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), respectively. Mobile phones were owned by 98.6% of students; 58.6% used mobile phones for over 2 h per day and 10.5% used them for over 5 h per day. Overall mobile phone use of over 5 h per day was associated with shorter sleep duration and insomnia (OR: 3.89 [95% CI: 1.21–12.49]), but not with depression. Mobile phone use of 2 h or more per day for social network services (OR: 3.63 [1.20–10.98]) and online chats (OR: 3.14 [1.42–6.95]), respectively, was associated with a higher risk of depression. Mobile phone overuse can be linked to unhealthy sleep habits and insomnia. Moreover, mobile phone overuse for social network services and online chats may contribute more to depression than the use for internet searching, playing games or viewing videos.

Background: Lifestyle modification is associated with a substantially decreased risk of cardiovascular events. However, the role of lifestyle intervention for secondary prevention in patients with noncardioembolic ischemic stroke is inadequately defined. We assessed the hypothesis that lifestyle intervention can reduce the onset of new vascular events in patients with noncardioembolic mild ischemic stroke. Methods: We conducted an observer-blind randomized controlled trial that enrolled 70 patients (48 men, mean age 63.5 years) with acute noncardioembolic mild ischemic stroke. The patients were allocated in equal numbers to a lifestyle intervention group or a control group. We performed lifestyle interventions, which comprised exercise training, salt restriction and nutrition advice for 24 weeks. Then all patients were prospectively followed up for occurrence of the primary endpoints, including hospitalization due to stroke recurrence and the onset of other vascular events. We also evaluated systolic blood pressure (SBP) at the clinic and at home, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) to compare the efficacy of the lifestyle interventions. Results: This trial was terminated earlier than expected because of the prespecified early stopping rule for efficacy. After the 24-week intervention period, the intervention group showed a significant increase in daily physical activity and a significant decrease in salt intake (physical activity, p = 0.012; salt intake, p < 0.001), with a significant difference between the randomized groups (physical activity, p < 0.001; salt intake, p = 0.018). Similarly, blood pressure was decreased and the HDL-C levels were increased in the intervention group (SBP, p < 0.001; HDL-C, p = 0.018), with significant differences between the randomized groups (SBP, p < 0.001; HDL-C, p = 0.022). In contrast, LDL-C, HbA1c and hs-CRP tended to decrease in the intervention group, but this decrease did not achieve significance. After a median follow-up period of 2.9 years, 12 patients allocated to the control group and 1 patient in the lifestyle intervention group experienced at least 1 vascular event. A sequential plans analysis indicated the superiority of the lifestyle intervention in interim analysis. Kaplan-Meier survival curves after the log-rank test showed a significant prognostic difference between the randomized groups (p = 0.005). Conclusions: Lifestyle intervention with appropriate medication is beneficial for reducing the incidence of new vascular events and improving vascular risk factors in patients with noncardioembolic mild ischemic stroke.

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to investigate whether a nursing intervention program using abdominal palpation would improve maternal-fetal relationships of pregnant women.MethodsThe subjects were Japanese women aged less than 40 years with singleton pregnancies. A nursing intervention involving abdominal palpations of Leopold’s Maneuvers was performed for the intervention group (n = 35) in the 30th, 32nd, and 34th weeks’ gestation, while ordinary health-related advice was provided to the control group (n = 73) in the corresponding period.ResultsAt the 30th (baseline) week, no intergroup differences were observed. However, the intervention group showed higher Prenatal Attachment Inventory (PAI) scores in the 34th (P < 0.01) and 36th weeks (P < 0.05) as well as a higher frequency of talking to the fetus in the 32nd (P < 0.01), 34th (P < 0.01), and 36th weeks (P < 0.05). Furthermore, Fetal position awareness score in the 32nd, the 34th, and the 36th weeks were higher in the intervention group than in the control group (P < 0.001).ConclusionsThe present findings have suggested that nursing interventions involving abdominal palpations can develop the maternal–fetal relationship. Further random controlled trials are warranted to ascertain this observation.

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These results suggest that skeletal muscle size could be a major determinant of IntraMAT content regardless of age.

Objective: To examine a possible relationship between obesity, job stress, and eating behavior in male Japanese workers. Method: A questionnaire on life style, job stress, and eating behavior was conducted with 208 male workers aged 19-60 years (33.7712.3 years) in a manufacturing industry in Japan. Height and weight were measured in an annual health examination. The relation between obesity, job stress, and eating behavior were analyzed between 141 nonobese subjects (BMI p24.9 kg/ m 2 ) and 67 obese subjects (BMI X25.0 kg/m 2 ). Results: Obesity was associated with psychological stress responses of tension/anxiety, especially tension. Tension/anxiety was also related to job demands positively and job latitudes negatively. The eating behaviors of subjects with tension/anxiety resembled those of the obese subjects. Conclusions: The present study suggests that obese male Japanese workers tend to be in a stressful state from high job demands and low job latitudes in the workplace. Such stressful conditions may affect eating behaviors to eat much and contribute to obesity. Stress management might be necessary in the workplace for the prevention of obesity among male Japanese workers.

The effects of overhead work were studied by comparing orchard farmers' musculoskeletal symptoms while bagging pears with those same symptoms while bagging apples. The subjects were 52 Japanese female farmers, who were examined twice an evening in late June for bagging pears, and during another evening of late July for bagging apples, when each task had been almost finished. They were questioned about musculoskeletal complaints of stiffness and pain during each job, and examined for muscle tenderness and pain from joint movement. Arm elevation angles during the work were measured for each type of bagging. The prevalence of stiffness and pain in the neck and shoulder, muscle tenderness in the shoulder regions, and pain in neck motion were found to be significantly higher when bagging pears than apples. Musculoskeletal symptoms of parts other than the neck and shoulder did not differ between the two types of bagging. The working posture of elevating the arm more than 90 degrees was assumed to account for 75% of the time bagging pears, against 40% for bagging apples. Overhead work requiring arm elevation and head extension was considered to be closely related with shoulder-neck disorders among farmers.