Both sedentary work and lack of habitual exercise are very common in Japanese workers. Sedentary work, independently from lack of habitual exercise, may increase the risk of diseases related to physical inactivity by affecting physical fitness and serum cholesterol profile.

The results indicate that long working hours directly and indirectly (via short sleep duration) induce headache even in apparently healthy white-collar men. Headache in employees may be useful for early detection of adverse health effects by long working hours.

Serum DHEAS reflects age better than health status evaluated by conventional health indices, and may increase with cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking in middle-aged healthy men.

The purposes of the present study were to evaluate the relationship between resting blood pressure and maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) and to elucidate the association of different types of sports activity on the resting blood pressure in Japanese young men with a wide range of VO2max. The subjects (n = 46) consisted of untrained subjects (n = 24), judo athletes (n = 11), and triathletes (n = 11) aged 21 to 35 years. Systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressures were measured in the sitting position after 5 min of resting, and VO2max was directly measured by the Douglas bag method. SBP, DBP, and mean blood pressure (MBP) were negatively correlated with VO2max and positively correlated with body weight. A stepwise selective multiple regression analysis for SBP resulted in two significantly correlating variables: VO2max and body weight. For DBP and MBP, the analysis resulted in two explaining variables: VO2max and body weight. Two independent variables explained 37% of the variation of the SBP, 43% of that of DBP, and 54% of that of MBP. These results indicate that variance in resting blood pressure is partly accounted for by the variance in endurance capacity (i.e., VO2max). However, SBP, DBP, and MBP were significantly higher in judo athletes compared with untrained men (P less than 0.05) when it was compared with the same range of VO2max. These results indicate that resting blood pressure is probably influenced with VO2max, while the relationship is influenced by the type and intensity of training and other factors.

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The presentation of Tables 1 and 4 were incorrect. Statistical analyses, OR and the 95% CI in the original text and tables are based on the correct data. The corrected tables are given below.

No abstract