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Purpose: The proportion of elderly individuals (age ≥65 years) in Japan reached 27.7% in 2017, the highest in the world. A serious social problem in a super-aged society is the rise in the number of elderly people who need long-term care (LTC), which is mainly due to cerebrovascular disease, dementia, age-related frailty, falls and fractures, and joint disease. We hypothesised that decreased muscle mass, muscle strength and insulin sensitivity are the common risk factors for these diseases related to needing LTC. We developed a prospective cohort study of elderly subjects in an urban community to test this hypothesis. The primary objective is to prospectively investigate associations between muscle mass, muscle strength, and insulin sensitivity and incidence of main disease and risk factors of needing LTC. The primary outcomes are the incidence of cerebrovascular disease and cognitive decline., Participants: Participants were 1629 people aged 65-84 years living in 13 communities in an urban area (Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan). Average age was 73.1±5.4 years., Findings to Date: We obtained baseline data on cognitive function, cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) determined by brain MRI, body composition, bone mineral density, arteriosclerosis, physical function, muscle mass, muscle strength and insulin sensitivity. Mild cognitive impairment and dementia were observed in 18.1% and 3.3% of participants, respectively. The prevalence of cerebral SVD was 24.8%. These characteristics are similar to those previously reported in elderly Japanese subjects., Future Plans: We will ask participants about their health status, including incidence of cerebrovascular disease, falls, fractures and other diseases every year by mail. We plan to re-evaluate cognitive function, brain MRI parameters and other parameters at 5 and 10 years after the baseline evaluation. We will evaluate whether low muscle function (muscle mass, muscle strength or insulin sensitivity) is a risk factor for cognitive decline or cerebrovascular disease., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

We evaluated 122 outpatients who visited our hospital for examination of asbestos-related diseases between November, 2005 and October, 2006. Patients were divided into three groups; occupational exposure, non-occupational exposure and non-exposure groups. The occupational exposure group showed a significantly higher rate of asbestos-related abnormal findings than the non-occupational exposure plus the non-exposure group (33% vs. 5%, respectively; P = 0.001). Pleural plaque was the most common abnormal finding related to asbestos. Only four of 24 patients with pleural plaques could obtain personal health records for workers enjoyed in dangerous work, whereas the rest of them were not able to mainly because they were self-employed. A health support system is necessary to also cover non-employees.

Raw vegetables cut for salad, cooked salad, cooked rice, boiled noodles, bean curd, and cooked Japanese foods were purchased in 27 retail shops in Tokyo. Intact vegetables before being processed and ready-to-eat fresh salad products were obtained from two food factories located in the suburbs of Tokyo. Two hundred thirty-eight retail samples, 137 samples of intact vegetables, and 159 samples of fresh products were examined for aerobic plate count (APC), coliforms, Escherichia coli, Listeria spp., Staphylococcus aureus, and Bacillus cereus. The APC of retail foods were 2.1 to 5.7 log CFU/g, and the range for the coliforms was 0.1 to 2.3 log CFU/g. The APC and coliform values showed that the raw vegetables cut for salad were the most heavily contaminated among the six kinds of ready-to-eat foods examined. Although L. monocytogenes was not detected, two samples of raw vegetables and five kinds of cooked foods yielded Listeria spp. S. aureus was detected in one sample of Japanese cooked food. The APC of the intact vegetables were 2.9 to 7.3 log CFU/g upon arrival and 2.2 to 7.2 log CFU/g after 3 days storage at 10 degrees C. The APC of the fresh products were 3.4 to 7.6 log CFU/g upon arrival and 4.7 to 8.7 log CFU/g after 3 days storage at 10 degrees C. The isolation rates for coliforms were 6.1 to 50% for intact vegetables and 50 to 66.7% for fresh products. E. coli was detected only in the fresh products. B. cereus was isolated from 20.1% (17 of 81) of the intact vegetables and 9.2% (8 of 87) of the fresh products.

Yersinia enterocolitica serogroups O5A and O8 were isolated from fecal samples of one colony of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) from the Tokyo Tama Zoo (Japan). Serogroup O5A was detected in brown bear (Ursus arctos) prior to the isolation from the macaques. Serogroup O5A organisms also were isolated from the Japanese macaques' breeding area. Serogroup O5A and O8 isolates were not pathogenic. Serogroup O8 isolates did not possess the O7 or O19 antigens.