Walking and Mortality in Japan: The Miyagi Cohort Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Although many studies in western populations demonstrated that time spent walking was associated with a reduced risk of all-cause mortality, data on Japanese has been sparse. METHODS: In 1990, 20,004 men and 21,159 women in Miyagi Prefecture in rural northern Japan (40-64 year of age) completed a self-administered questionnaire including a question on time spent walking. Cox regression was used to estimate relative risk (RR) of mortality according to three levels of walking (30 minutes or less, between 30 minutes and one hour, and one hour or more), with adjustment for age, education, marital status, past history of diseases, smoking, drinking, body mass index, and dietary variables. During 11 years of follow-up, 1,879 subjects had died. RESULTS: Time spent walking was inversely associated with risk of all-cause mortality: compared with men and women who walked one hour or more per day, multivariate RR (95% confidence intervals) was 1.06 (0.95-1.19) for subjects who walked between 30 minutes and one hour per day, and 1.16 (1.04-1.29) for subjects who walked 30 minutes or less per day (P for trend=0.007). Shorter duration of walking was associated with increased mortality among men who were never smokers (P for trend=0.081) and past smokers (P for trend=0.026), but not among currently smoking men (P for trend=0.751). We observed similar effect modification for women. CONCLUSIONS: Time spent walking was associated with a reduced risk for all-cause mortality, especially among nonsmoking men and women.

Evaluation of New Gyro-Sensor and Accelerometer Device to Estimate Physical Activity

“…Physical activity plays a major role in the prevention and treatment of the metabolic syndrome (Fujita et al, 2004;Manson et al, 1992;Paffenbarger et al, 1983;Pate et al, 1995). In Japan, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare recommends 60 min of physical activity of 3 or more metabolic equivalents (METs) intensity per day (Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan, 2006).…”

Health Practices and Mortality in Japan: Combined Effects of Smoking, Drinking, Walking and Body Mass Index in the Miyagi Cohort Study

“…[5][6][7][8] Second, we included only health practices that were significantly associated with all-cause mortality in our subjects, even when they were considered individually. [1][2][3][4] This choice of health practices would make our scoring method readily interpretable. Third, we adjusted for potential confounders as much as possible in the analyses, which included age, socioeconomic status (education and marital status), and baseline health status (past history of diseases).…”

“…The accompanying papers described in detail how the questionnaire asked about the four practices. [1][2][3][4] We dichotomized each variable and assigned 1 or 0 point to potentially unhealthy or healthy habits, respectively (Table 1). We then summed these points and determined the number of high-risk practices for each subject.…”

“…[1][2][3][4] Specifically, we considered those categories among each variable that were associated with increased mortality as "unhealthy" (assigning 1 point), and the other categories as "healthy" (assigning 0 point).…”

Improvement of New Gyro-Sensor and Accelerometer Device Used for Walking and Running

“…There is substantial evidence supporting the importance of habitual physical activity in maintaining good health and avoiding lifestylerelated disease (Fujita et al, 2004;Manson et al, 1992;PaŠenbarger et al, 1983;Pate et al, 1995). To further develop the evidence of the association between quantity of physical activity and health, accurate and useful methods of physical activity assessment are needed.…”