We conducted a population-based prospective cohort study in Japan to examine the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and the risk of incidence of any cancer and of cancer at individual sites. Body mass index was calculated from self-administered body weight and height at baseline. Relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated in multivariate proportional-hazards models. Among 27,539 persons (15,054 women and 12,485 men) aged 40 years or older who were free of cancer at enrollment in 1984, 1,672 (668 women and 1,004 men) developed cancer during 9 years of follow-up. In women, after adjustment for potential confounders, the RR of all cancers associated with different BMI, relative to a BMI of 18.5-24.9, were 1.04 (95% CI ‫؍‬ 0.85-1.27) for BMI ‫؍‬ 25.0 -27.4, 1.29 (1.00 -1.68) for BMI ‫؍‬ 27.5-29.9 and 1.47 (1.06 -2.05) for BMI >30.0 (p for trend ‫؍‬ 0.007). Higher BMI was also significantly associated with higher risk of cancers of the colorectum, breast (postmenopausal), endometrium and gallbladder in women. In men, we observed significantly increased all-cancer risk among only never-smokers. Overweight and obesity could account for 4.5% (all subjects) or 6.2% (never-smokers) of the risk of any cancer in women and ؊0.2% (all subjects) or 3.7% (never-smokers) in men. The value for women was within the range among women reported from Western populations (3.2%-8.8%). Our data demonstrate that excess weight is a major cancer risk among Japanese women. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Key words: cancer; incidence; Japan; obesity; population attributable fraction Growing evidence indicates that excess body weight is associated with increased risk of cancer of the colon, 1-14 breast (in postmenopausal women), 1,3-9,15-18 endometrium 1-8,19 -21 and kidney. 1,3-5,8 -10,22-24 Adenocarcinoma of the esophagus, 1,4,5,10,[25][26][27][28] cancers of the gastric cardia, 1,5,10,[25][26][27][28] and gallbladder [1][2][3]7,8,10,29,30 have also been suggested to be associated with excess weight. Data for cancers of the prostate, 1,6 -10,31-42 pancreas 2,8,9,43-45 and ovary 2,8,9 are still inconclusive.Most of these reports come from Western populations. There is limited knowledge regarding the risk of excess weight among other populations, 46 -57 whose life-style characteristics and genetic backgrounds substantially differ from those in Western populations. Because variations in those factors could interfere with metabolic abnormalities or hormonal conditions, it is necessary to examine whether excess weight is also a risk factor for cancer among non-Western populations. 3,5,7,58 -61 In addition, there has been limited effort to estimate the total proportion of all incident cancers attributable to excess weight. 1,9,62 One meta-analysis from Europe estimated the proportions of all cancer cases attributable to excess weight: excess body weight accounted for 6% of incidence in women, ranging between 3.9% in Denmark and 8.8% in Spain; and 3% in men, ranging between 2.1% in Greece and 4.9% in Germany. 1 A rec...

We evaluated the efficacy of toric intraocular lenses (IOLs) implanted in the eyes of 47 patients who had preoperative against-the -rule astigmatism. The lenses, which had a cylinder power of 2.00 diopters (D) (n = 26) or 3.00 D (n = 21), were implanted through a 5.7 mm incision after cataract extraction by phacoemulsification. Best corrected visual acuity three months postoperatively was 20/25 or better in 77% of eyes. The 3.00 D IOLs resulted in better correction than the 2.00 D IOLs when the axis shift of the lens was less than 30 degrees. A negative effect occurred in some eyes in which the lens axis rotated more than 30 degrees. The maximum acceptable axis shift seems to be less than 30 degrees.

Rationale: Matrix metalloprotease (MMP)-9 is an elastolytic endopeptidase produced by activated macrophages that may be involved in the development of human pulmonary emphysema and could be inhibited with existing compounds. Mouse models have demonstrated that excess MMP-9 production can result in permanent alveolar destruction. Objectives: To determine if MMP-9 causes cigarette smoke-induced emphysema using MMP-9 knockout mice and human samples. Methods: Mouse lungs were analyzed for inflammation and airspace enlargement using a mainstream smoke-exposure model. Human macrophage mRNA was isolated from subjects with emphysema by laser capture microdissection. Human blood monocyte mRNA was isolated from subjects with greater than 30 pack-year smoking history. Human gene expression was determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction and compared with emphysema severity determined by automated computed tomography analysis. Plasma Clara cell secretory protein and surfactant protein-D were quantified to measure ongoing lung injury. Measurements and Main Results: Mice deficient in MMP-9 develop the same degree of cigarette smoke-induced inflammation and airspace enlargement as strain-matched controls. Macrophages are the predominant source of MMP-9 production in human emphysema specimens and similar quantities of macrophage MMP-9 mRNA is present in areas of lung with and without emphysema. Circulating monocytes produce more MMP-9 in individuals with advanced emphysema severity despite no correlation of MMP-9 with markers of ongoing lung damage. Conclusions: These results suggest that MMP-9 in humans who smoke is similar to smoke-exposed mice, where MMP-9 is present in emphysematous lung but not correlated with the emphysema. To the degree that the mechanisms of emphysema in humans who smoke resemble the mouse model, these data suggest specific inhibition of MMP-9 is unlikely to be an effective therapy for cigarette smoke-induced emphysema. Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT 00757120).Keywords: pulmonary disease, chronic obstructive; laser capture microdissection; mice, knockout Several studies have implicated matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9, gelatinase B, type IV collagenase B), in emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) pathogenesis (1-5). MMP-9 can be accurately measured and is an elastolytic protease that is produced in large quantities by inflammatory cells, thus making it suitable for investigation in emphysema (5-7). However, because the pathophysiology of emphysema follows such an indolent course, developing over decades in response to cigarette smoke, a link between MMP-9 activity and alveolar destruction is lacking.Mouse models have identified several MMPs that cause airspace enlargement by overexpression (8, 9), or that prevent airspace enlargement by gene deletion in smoking models (10). The recent discovery that mice transgenically altered to overexpress human MMP-9 in alveolar macrophages develop progressive airspace enlargement (8) adds importance to the e...

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Driver drowsiness detection is a key technology that can prevent fatal car accidents caused by drowsy driving. The present work proposes a driver drowsiness detection algorithm based on heart rate variability (HRV) analysis and validates the proposed method by comparing with electroencephalography (EEG)-based sleep scoring. Methods: Changes in sleep condition affect the autonomic nervous system and then HRV, which is defined as an RR interval (RRI) fluctuation on an electrocardiogram trace. Eight HRV features are monitored for detecting changes in HRV by using multivariate statistical process control, which is a well known anomaly detection method. Result: The performance of the proposed algorithm was evaluated through an experiment using a driving simulator. In this experiment, RRI data were measured from 34 participants during driving, and their sleep onsets were determined based on the EEG data by a sleep specialist. The validation result of the experimental data with the EEG data showed that drowsiness was detected in 12 out of 13 pre-N1 episodes prior to the sleep onsets, and the false positive rate was 1.7 times per hour. Conclusion: The present work also demonstrates the usefulness of the framework of HRV-based anomaly detection that was originally proposed for epileptic seizure prediction. Significance: The proposed method can contribute to preventing accidents caused by drowsy driving.

The proposed method can be used in daily life, because the heart rate can be measured easily by using a wearable sensor.