Smokers with airflow limitation had exaggerated subclinical atherosclerosis. This study suggests that middle-aged men who are susceptible to COPD may also be susceptible to vascular atherosclerosis by smoking, and atherosclerotic change starts early in the disease process of COPD.

Decreased total adiponectin is an independent risk factor for the progression to type 2 diabetes in Japanese-Americans. Moreover, HMW adiponectin more closely associates with the progression to type 2 diabetes when compared with total adiponectin.

OBJECTIVE -Increasing evidence from a cohort of Caucasians recently suggests that an elevated level of C-reactive protein (CRP) is associated with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. However, Japanese subjects are skewed to lower CRP concentrations than westerners. Therefore, the effect of CRP on the development of type 2 diabetes among Japanese is unclear.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS -We examined 396 male and 551 female nondiabetic Japanese Americans who underwent a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test (GTT) and were then followed for an average of 6.5 years. We investigated whether elevated serum CRP level is a risk factor in the development of type 2 diabetes among these subjects.RESULTS -Subjects with a high CRP level showed a significantly higher incidence of type 2 diabetes compared with subjects with a low level among both men (P ϭ 0.028) and women (P ϭ 0.004) in a log-rank test. In a Cox proportional hazards model dividing quartiles of CRP, the hazard ratios for diabetes development in the highest versus lowest quartile of CRP levels were 2.84 (95% CI 1.09 -7.39) among men and 3.11 (1.25-7.75) among women after adjustment for age, smoking, family history of diabetes, classification of a 75-g GTT, hormone replacement therapy (among women), BMI, and homeostasis model assessment.CONCLUSIONS -Among Japanese Americans, CRP may be a risk factor for development of type 2 diabetes independent of either obesity or insulin resistance. Our results suggest that inflammation may be closely related to the mechanism of type 2 diabetes among Japanese Americans. Diabetes Care 26:2754 -2757, 2003C omplications of diabetes reduce patients' quality of life. Therefore, it is necessary to identify individuals with glucose intolerance as early as possible to prevent its progression into diabetes. Thus, it may be more efficient to intervene when high-risk factors in subjects can be readily identified.C-reactive protein (CRP) is a marker of acute inflammation and is generally used as a measure of inflammatory disease. Recently, CRP increases have been reported in obesity (1,2) and type 2 diabetes (1). Thus, there is increasing evidence to suggest that insulin resistance is a chronic low-grade inflammatory state (3). In prospective case-control studies (4 -9), elevated levels of CRP predict the development of type 2 diabetes, supporting a possible role for inflammation in diabetogenesis (4, 6 -8).According to the literature on Japanese populations (10), Japanese subjects are skewed to lower CRP concentrations than westerners. Therefore, the acutephase response may vary due to racial differences. However, there have been no published reports investigating the relationship between CRP and the development of type 2 diabetes among Japanese. Although Americans of Japanese descent share a virtually identical genetic makeup with native Japanese currently living in Japan, Japanese Americans have approximately twice the incidence of type 2 diabetes compared with Japanese living in Japan, primarily because of a westernized lifestyl...

Serum visfatin levels were positively correlated with the serum levels of IL-6 and slightly related with serum levels of CRP, but not with HOMA-IR, in Japanese Americans. Our results indicate that circulating visfatin may reflect inflammation status.

No abstract

OBJECTIVE -Impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and impaired fasting glucose (IFG) differ in their risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, but previous cross-sectional studies have suggested little difference in their levels of lipids or blood pressure. We compared the white blood cell (WBC) count between subjects with IFG and IGT.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS -The subjects were 4,720 nondiabetic Japanese men aged 24 -84 years. Based on the 75-g oral glucose tolerance test, the subjects were classified into the following four groups: normal fasting glucose/normal glucose tolerance (n ϭ 3,753), isolated IFG (n ϭ 290), isolated IGT (n ϭ 476), and IFG/IGT (n ϭ 201). We compared the WBC count among the four groups and investigated variables that showed a significant association with the WBC count.RESULTS -The isolated IGT group had a significantly higher WBC count than the isolated IFG group (6,530 vs. 6,210/mm 3 , P Ͻ 0.05). By stepwise analyses, age, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, fasting insulin, and 2-h postchallenge plasma glucose (PG) showed an independent association with the WBC count (adjusted R 2 ϭ 0.057). In the analysis stratified by smoking status, the WBC count was independently associated with 2-h PG and triglycerides, irrespective of smoking status.CONCLUSIONS -Individuals with isolated IGT had a significantly higher WBC count than those with isolated IFG. The WBC count was associated with 2-h PG and various components of the metabolic syndrome.

No abstract

Thiophene oligomers and polymers are promising compounds applicable to organic field-effect transistors 1 (OFETs), photodiodes, 2 light-emitting diodes, 3 and their integrated devices. 4 Selenophene is a homologue of the chalcogenophenes and the chemical and physical properties are similar to those of thiophene. To our knowledge, however, there has been no report on organic devices made with oligo-or polyselenophenes. This may be ascribable to the poor electrical properties of the polyselenophenes reported in early studies of the system. For example, the conductivities of doped polyselenophene films 5 are in the range of 10 -4 -10 -2 S cm -1 , which are fairly small compared with those (10-100 S cm -1 ) of doped polythiophenes. 6 Recently, we have synthesized structurally well-characterized oligoselenophenes and found that the iodine-doped oligoselenophenes exhibit the conductivities of 10 -2 S cm -1 , which are comparable with those of the analogous doped oligothiophenes. 7 This result encourages us in the studies of electronic devices based on organic functionality materials. The present work is the first report of an OFET made with oligoselenophene, showing good FET behavior.2,2′:5′,2′′:5′′,2′′′-Quaterselenophene (4S) was synthesized by the Stille coupling reaction between dibromobiselenophene and 2-fold of 2-tributylstanyl selenophene 7 and purified twice by sublimation prior to use. 8 OFETs were fabricated on heavily doped n + -Si (100) wafers with a 220-nm thermally grown SiO 2 ( Figure 1). The 4S film (50-nm thick) was vacuum-deposited onto the Si/SiO 2 substrate, and succeedingly Au films (100 nm) as drain and source electrodes were deposited on the organic layer through a shadow mask. For a typical device, the drain-source channel length and width are 50 µm and 2 mm, respectively. Characteristics of a drain current (i d ) versus drain voltage (V d ) of the OFET devices were measured under vacuum with an ADVANTEST R6245 power supply. The field-effect mobilities were calculated in the saturation regime of the i d as shown in a previous paper. 9 X-ray diffractions (Cu, λ KR ) 1.541 Å) of the organic thin films on Si/SiO 2 substrate were measured with a Maxscience M18XHF diffractometer. AFM images of the organic thin films were obtained by using a Shimadzu SPM-9500 microscope. All the measurements were conducted at room temperature (RT).The sublimed film of 4S is orange and shiny. X-ray diffraction of the 4S film on Si/SiO 2 shows a series of the peaks, indicating the order of the molecular repeat with 15.7 Å (Figure 2). This value was independent of the substrate temperature (T s ) and consistent with the b-axis of the single-crystal unit cell (a ) 7.94 Å, b ) (a) Berggren, M.; Inganas, O.; Gustafsson, G.; Rasmusson, J.; Andersson, M. R.; Hjertberg, T.; Wennerstrom, O. Nature 1994, 372, 444. (b) Geiger, F.; Stoldt, M.; Schweizer, H.; Bauerle, P.; Umbach, E. (8) Toxicities of the oligoselenophene compounds are not wellknown. The synthesis must be carefully performed in an efficient hood. Disposable vinyl or...