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Abstract: Apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 (ASK1, also called MAP3K5) is a mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase (MAP3K) that plays important roles in stress-induced cell death and inflammation, and is expected as a new therapeutic target for cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases. We identified novel ASK1 inhibitors by virtual screening from the public chemical library collected by Chemical Biology Research Initiative (CBRI) at the University of Tokyo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The secretion of salivary cortisol did not increase upon exposure to malodors. • The secretion of salivary alpha amylase increased upon exposure to malodors. • The Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) is involved in the odor-elicited stress response. • Subjective unpleasantness is an important determinant of the SNS response. • Salivary alpha amylase secretion can be an objective marker for odor-elicited stress. Unpleasant odors impair our mood and may affect physical health, even when the odorants are not toxic. A possible cause for such negative effects is stress induced by odors; however, whether the unpleasantness itself elicited stress or not has not been clear. Thus, we examined whether unpleasantness of odors induced the stress responses of emotion, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). Six experiments were conducted, where salivary cortisol or salivary alpha amylase (sAA), markers for activities of the HPA and the SNS, respectively, were measured, along with subjective ratings of odors and emotion. First, the responses to three malodors listed in the Offensive Odor Control Law in Japan were examined. While these odors were rated as unpleasant, and exposure to them increased anxiety, no response of the HPA was observed (experiment 1, n = 69). In contrast, an increase of the SNS activity was observed after exposure to two of the three malodors, while the SNS did not respond to pleasant odors (experiments 2–4, n = 35, 34 and 30). To examine the effect of unpleasantness further, the SNS response was examined while subjective unpleasantness of odors was manipulated by adding negative verbal information (experiment 5, n = 92), or by mixing in a pleasant odor (experiment 6, n = 35). The SNS responses upon inhalation of the same odorous substances were found to be dependent on whether they were perceived as unpleasant. Finally, a correlation analysis on the pooled data from experiments 2–6 showed that the odor-elicited SNS activity and anxiety were strongly correlated with perceived unpleasantness of odors. These results suggest that subjective unpleasantness of odors per se can induce the stress response of emotion and the SNS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine the relationship between health literacy (HL), health information access, health behavior, and health status in Japanese people., Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted at six healthcare facilities in Japan. Eligible respondents aged 20-64 years (n=1218) were included. Path analysis with structural equation modeling was performed to test the hypothesis model linking HL to health information access, health behavior, and health status., Results: The acceptable fitting model indicated that the pathways linking HL to health status consisted of two indirect paths; one intermediated by health information access and another intermediated by health behavior. Those with higher HL as measured by the 14-item Health Literacy Scale (HLS-14) were significantly more likely to get sufficient health information from multiple sources, less likely to have risky habits of smoking, regular drinking, and lack of exercise, and in turn, more likely to report good self-rated health., Conclusion: HL was significantly associated with health information access and health behavior in Japanese people. HL may play a key role in health promotion, even in highly educated countries like Japan., Practice Implications: In order to enhance the effects of health promotion interventions, health professionals should aim at raising HL levels of their target population groups., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: A recent survey of 79 countries showed that fertility knowledge was lower in Japan than in any other developed country. Given the fertility decline in Japan and the importance of fertility knowledge, we conducted an online survey to examine fertility knowledge and the related factors for effective public education., Methods: We studied people aged 18-59 years old, n = 4,328 (the "General" group), and also people who had been trying to conceive for at least six months, 18-50 years old, n = 618 (the "Triers" group). Fertility knowledge was assessed using the Japanese version of the 13-item Cardiff Fertility Knowledge Scale (CFKS-J). All participants provided socio-demographic and fertility information. Participants also completed a 14-item health literacy scale and an 11-item health numeracy scale. We asked participants who were aware of age-related decline in fertility when and where they first acquired that knowledge., Results: The average percentages of CFKS-J items answered correctly were 53.1% in the Triers group and 44.4% in the General group (p < 0.001). Multivariate linear regression models showed in the Triers group greater fertility knowledge was associated with greater health literacy and prior medical consultation regarding their fertility. In the General group greater fertility knowledge was associated with being female, younger, university educated, currently trying to conceive, non-smoking, having higher household income, having higher health literacy and having higher health numeracy. Of those who were aware of the age-related decline in fertility, around 3% first learned the fact "at school", and around 65% first learned it "through mass media" or "via the Internet". More than 30% of the respondents first learned it "less than 5 years before" the survey., Conclusions: Although fertility knowledge had improved since a previous study, possibly due to recent media coverage of age-related infertility, it was still low. Educational interventions, both in schools and in the community, may be needed to increase fertility knowledge in the general population because most people obtain fertility knowledge from mass media, which has been shown to often present distorted and inaccurate fertility information.

Objectives: To determine the reading comprehension of health checkup reports in the context of health literacy (HL) in Japanese people., Methods: A web-based survey was conducted among 424 Japanese adults aged 35-59 years. Participants were asked to read specifically designed health checkup reports and then answer a series of questions to examine whether they accomplished the fundamental purposes of health checkup reports (recognition of the problems, recognition of the risk of illness, recognition of the need for preventive action, and motivation for preventive action). HL was simultaneously measured using the 14-item health literacy scale (HLS-14), the 11-item Lipkus scale (Lipkus-J), and the Newest Vital Sign (NVS-J)., Results: About 70 % of the study subjects misread the normal/abnormal classification for at least one items. Those with lower HLS-14 scores were significantly less likely to recognize the problems, the risk of illness, and the need for preventive action for the examinee, and also less likely to express their willingness to take preventive action in compliance with the doctor's advice after having received the health checkup report. Compared with the HLS-14 scores, the Lipkus-J and NVS-J scores showed hardly any association with the reading comprehension of health checkup reports., Conclusion: All examinees do not always have an adequate level of HL. HL may be the major determinant of reading comprehension of health checkup reports. For more effective health checkups, health promotion service providers should become aware of the existence of examinees with inadequate HL and address the problem of misreading health checkup results.

Health literacy (HL) refers to the ability to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services, and is thus needed to make appropriate health decisions. The Newest Vital Sign (NVS) is comprised of 6 questions about an ice cream nutrition label and assesses HL numeracy skills. We developed a Japanese version of the NVS (NVS-J) and evaluated the validity and reliability of the NVS-J in patients with chronic pain. The translation of the original NVS into Japanese was achieved as per the published guidelines. An observational study was subsequently performed to evaluate the validity and reliability of the NVS-J in 43 Japanese patients suffering from chronic pain. Factor analysis with promax rotation, using the Kaiser criterion (eigenvalues ≥1.0), and a scree plot revealed that the main component of the NVS-J consists of three determinative factors, and each factor consists of two NVS-J items. The criterion-related validity of the total NVS-J score was significantly correlated with the total score of Ishikawa et al.'s self-rated HL Questionnaire, the clinical global assessment of comprehensive HL level, cognitive function, and the Brinkman index. In addition, Cronbach's coefficient for the total score of the NVS-J was adequate (alpha = 0.72). This study demonstrated that the NVS-J has good validity and reliability. Further, the NVS-J consists of three determinative factors: "basic numeracy ability," "complex numeracy ability," and "serious-minded ability." These three HL abilities comprise a 3-step hierarchical structure. Adequate HL should be promoted in chronic pain patients to enable coping, improve functioning, and increase activities of daily living (ADLs) and quality of life (QOL).

We aimed to explore the interactive effects of the accessibility of information and the degree of carbon footprint score on consumers' value judgments of food products. Participants (n=151, undergraduate students in Japan) rated their maximum willingness to pay (WTP) for four food products varying in information accessibility (active-search or read-only conditions) and in carbon footprint values (low, middle, high, or non-display) provided. We also assessed further effects of information accessibly and carbon footprint value on other product attributes utilizing the subjective estimation of taste, quality, healthiness, and environmental friendliness. Results of the experiment demonstrated an interactive effect of information accessibility and the degree of carbon emission on consumer valuation of carbon footprint-labeled food. The carbon footprint value had a stronger impact on participants' WTP in the active-search condition than in the read-only condition. Similar to WTP, the results of the subjective ratings for product qualities also exhibited an interactive effect of the two factors on the rating of environmental friendliness for products. These results imply that the perceived environmental friendliness inferable from a carbon footprint label contributes to creating value for a food product.

The recent advent of multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has expanded its technical potential for human brain mapping. However, NIRS measurement has a technical drawback in that it measures cortical activities from the head surface without anatomical information of the object to be measured. This problem is also found in transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) that transcranially activates or inactivates the cortical surface. To overcome this drawback, we examined cranio-cerebral correlation using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) via the guidance of the international 10-20 system for electrode placement, which had originally been developed for electroencephalography. We projected the 10-20 standard cranial positions over the cerebral cortical surface. After examining the cranio-cerebral correspondence for 17 healthy adults, we normalized the 10-20 cortical projection points of the subjects to the standard Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) and Talairach stereotactic coordinates and obtained their probabilistic distributions. We also expressed the anatomical structures for the 10-20 cortical projection points probabilistically. Next, we examined the distance between the cortical surface and the head surface along the scalp and created a cortical surface depth map. We found that the locations of 10-20 cortical projection points in the standard MNI or Talairach space could be estimated with an average standard deviation of 8 mm. This study provided an initial step toward establishing a three-dimensional probabilistic anatomical platform that enables intra- and intermodal comparisons of NIRS and TMS brain imaging data.

Background: Few studies have investigated the association between smoking and ultrasonographically diagnosed gallbladder (GB) disease, and their results were uncertain. This study was conducted to examine the association between smoking and drinking and GB diseases., Methods: A total of 9,947 subjects (age, 30-69 years; 4,953 men and 4,994 women) voluntarily received a paid medical check-up at our center in Yamanashi Prefecture in Japan. All of the subjects underwent abdominal ultrasonographic (US) examination, a demographic check, and a biochemical test, and answered a self-administered questionnaire asking about smoking habits and alcohol consumption. Of the 9,947 subjects, 483 had gallstones, 819 had gallbladder polyps, and 169 were in a state of postcholecystectomy. We compared the findings in this group with the findings in 8,417 people (4,144 males and 4,273 females) with normal gallbladder., Results: Multiple regression analysis among males showed that cigarette smoking was inversely related to GB polyps (odds ratio, [OR], 0.76; 95% confidence internal [CI], 0.59-0.98 and OR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.56-0.98, respectively, for current and ex-smokers). Ex-smokers a showed positive association with the postcholecystectomy state (OR, 2.56; 95% CI, 1.18-5.52). Light drinkers showed an inverse relation to GB stones (OR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.49-0.99), and heavy drinkers showed an inverse relation to GB polyps (OR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.51-0.90). Current drinkers showed an inverse relation to the postcholecystectomy state (OR, 0.48; 95% CI, 0.28-0.83)., Conclusions: Cigarette smoking was inversely related to gallbladder polyps in males and was positively related to the postcholecystectomy state. Drinking was inversely related to gallstones, GB polyps, and the postcholecystectomy state in males.