Peptic Ulcers in Fukushima Prefecture Related to the Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Accident

Hikichi, Takuto; Satō, Masaki; Watanabe, Ko; Nakamura, Jun; Kikuchi, Hitomi; Ejiri, Yutaka; Ishihata, Ryoichi; Irisawa, Atsushi; Takahashi, Yuta; Saito, Hironobu; Takagi, Tadayuki; Suzuki, Rei; Sugimoto, Mitsuru; Konno, Naoki; Waragai, Yuichi; Asama, Hiroyuki; Takasumi, Mika; Sato, Yuki; Ohira, Hiromasa; Obara, Katsutoshi

doi:10.2169/internalmedicine.9252-17

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…For example, a war 41 or an economic crisis 42,43 arises unpredictably, and is resolved in a period of time. Another example is natural disasters such as tsunamis or earthquakes, 44,45 which have short duration, but their effects may be felt long-term. All the three categories may cause their respective mortality rates of peptic ulcers.…”

Section: Classification Of the Stressors Causing Peptic Ulcersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel Data Analyses Explain the Birth-Cohort Phenomenon of Peptic Ulcers

Dong¹

2023

Preprint

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Background: The birth-cohort phenomenon of peptic ulcers has remained an unresolved mystery for 60 years since it was first reported in 1962. Currently, peptic ulcers are widely studied as an infectious disease caused by Helicobacter pylori, but this etiology cannot explain this phenomenon. A recently published etiological theory identified peptic ulcers as a psychosomatic disease triggered by psychological stress. This new theory addresses all the characteristics, observations/phenomena, controversies, and mysteries of the disease in a series of 6 articles. Methods: In this fourth article of the series, all the possible causes of peptic ulcers collected from literatures were classified into 3 categories, and the mortality rates caused by these categories were superposed to reproduce the fluctuation curves in the birth-cohort phenomenon. Results: The fluctuation curves in the birth-cohort phenomenon were successfully reproduced, with all the details of the phenomenon elucidated. Psychological stress induced by the First World War accounted for the increasing mortality rates in the early 1910s. The high mortality rates between 1910s and 1940s were maintained by a succession of crucial events that led to extensive psychological stress in the population. The end of the Second World War and continuous improvements in living conditions explained the fall in the early 1950s and afterwards. Conclusions: The birth-cohort phenomenon cannot be fully understood unless peptic ulcers are considered a psychosomatic disease triggered by psychological stress. A full explanation of the birth-cohort phenomenon exemplifies the application of a brand-new methodological concept, superposition mechanism, which can be universally applied to understand any life phenomenon and human disease.

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Section: Classification Of the Stressors Causing Peptic Ulcersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel Data Analyses Explain the Birth-Cohort Phenomenon of Peptic Ulcers

Dong¹

2023

Preprint

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“…For example, a war [58] or an economic crisis [59,60] arises unpredictably and is resolved in a period of time. Another example is natural disasters, such as tsunamis or earthquakes [61,62], which have short duration but the effects may be felt long-term. All the 3 categories may cause their respective annual mortality rates of peptic ulcers.…”

Section: Clinical Misdiagnosesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel Data Analyses Explain the Birth-Cohort Phenomenon of Peptic Ulcers

Dong

2023

Preprint

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Background: In 1962, Susser and Stein observed that the mortality rates of peptic ulcers in England and Wales increased markedly in the 1910s, maintained at a high level during the 1910s-1940s, and began to decline steadily since the early 1950s. They termed this epidemic pattern a birth-cohort phenomenon, but its mechanism has never been elucidated. Susser and Stein speculated that the occurrences of extraordinary social environmental factors roughly fit the fluctuations, but the role of environmental factors in peptic ulcers has never been identified. Objectives: This study aims to elucidate the mechanism of the birth-cohort phenomenon of peptic ulcers and identify the role of environmental factors in the disease. Methods: Starting from an etiology identified recently, this study uses the two inverse operations in calculus, differentiation, and integration, to analyze the existing data. First, a fluctuation curve in the birth-cohort phenomenon is differentiated into multiple annual mortality rates caused by individual environmental factors. Second, these annual mortality rates are integrated to reproduce the fluctuation curve in the birth-cohort phenomenon. Results: The differentiation reveals a parallel relationship between the psychological impacts of environmental factors and the mortality rates of peptic ulcers, whereas the integration reproduces a representative fluctuation curve in the birth-cohort phenomenon. The successive occurrences of multiple social environmental factors from the 1910s to 1940s maintained the increase in mortality rates, while the sustained improvements in living environments explained the steady decline of the mortality rates from the early 1950s. Conclusion: The parallel relationship suggests a causal role of environmental factors in peptic ulcers, whereas the reproduction of a representative fluctuation curve indicates that multiple environmental factors caused the birth-cohort phenomenon by Superposition Mechanism. Significantly, this study challenges the current reductionist approach used to study disease in modern medicine by demonstrating the effectiveness of an opposite methodological concept focused on integration.

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Gastrointestinale Erkrankungen

Kapfhammer¹

2022

Depression, Angst, Traumatischer Stress Und Internistische Erkrankungen

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Peptic Ulcers in Fukushima Prefecture Related to the Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Accident

Cited by 5 publications

References 19 publications

Novel Data Analyses Explain the Birth-Cohort Phenomenon of Peptic Ulcers

Novel Data Analyses Explain the Birth-Cohort Phenomenon of Peptic Ulcers

Novel Data Analyses Explain the Birth-Cohort Phenomenon of Peptic Ulcers

Gastrointestinale Erkrankungen

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