No abstract

Adiponectin is a recently discovered protein that seems to be exclusively secreted by adipocytes and is the most abundant adipose tissue-derived protein. While some recent studies have demonstrated an association between adiponectin levels and hypertension, these studies were cross-sectional in design, and the results have been inconsistent. Therefore we performed a prospective study to elucidate the role of adiponectin in the development of hypertension. The results of this study showed that serum adiponectin levels were significantly lower in hypertensive subjects than in normotensive subjects. Moreover, in logistic regression analysis, the subjects in the lowest quartile had a 3.72-fold higher risk than those in the highest quartile. Even after adjusting for potential confounding factors, this association was found to be significant.

We not only revealed that habitual coffee consumption is associated with higher adiponectin levels in Japanese males but also found a dose-dependent association between coffee consumption and adiponectin levels. Therefore, our study suggested that coffee components might play an important role in the elevation of adiponectin level.

To investigate effects of low body mass index (BMI) and smoking on all-cause mortality among middle-aged and elderly Japanese, we conducted a community-based prospective study. A mail survey was conducted in 1987-1990 in four towns, western Japan. A cohort of 7,301 Japanese men and 8,825 Japanese women was followed up from the date of the mail survey to 1995 in three of the towns and 1998 in the fourth town. We investigated the effect of BMI and smoking on all-cause mortality by using Cox's proportional hazards model. The relationship between BMI and all-cause mortality was a reverse J-shape with minimal mortality in 24 < or = BMI < 26 in men and a U-shape with minimal mortality in 22 < or = BMI < 24 in women, after adjusting for age and smoking. The lowest BMI category (BM < 20) had the highest all-cause mortality in men and also in women. Taking only never-smokers, the highest risk for all-cause mortality was observed in the lowest BMI category for men and for women. This does not seem to be explained by smoking and pre-existing diseases. More attention should be paid to persons with low BMI.

Inadequate notification is a recognized problem of measles surveillance systems in many countries, and it should be monitored using multiple data sources. We compared data from three different surveillance sources in 2007: (1) the sentinel surveillance system mandated by the Act on Prevention of Infectious Diseases and Medical Care for Patients Suffering Infectious Diseases, (2) the mandatory notification system run by the Aichi prefectural government, and (3) health insurance claims (HICs) submitted to corporate health insurance societies. For each dataset, we examined the number of measles cases by month, within multiple age groups, and in two categories of diagnostic test groups. We found that the sentinel surveillance system underestimated the number of adult measles cases. We also found that HIC data, rather than mandatory notification data, were more likely to come from individuals who had undergone laboratory tests to confirm their measles diagnosis. Thus, HIC data may provide a supplementary and readily available measles surveillance data source.