Search

Resistant hypertension is an important cardiovascular risk factor. This analysis of the JAMP study (Japan Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring Prospective) data investigated the effects of uncontrolled resistant hypertension diagnosed using ambulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring on the risk of heart failure (HF) and overall cardiovascular events. The JAMP study patients with hypertension and no HF history were included. They had true resistant hypertension (24-hour BP ≥130/80 mm Hg), pseudoresistant hypertension (24-hour BP P =0.012 and 2.24 [95% CI, 1.17–4.30]; P =0.015, respectively) and versus uncontrolled nonresistant hypertension (1.51 [1.03–2.20]; P =0.034 and 3.03 [1.58–5.83]; P Registration: URL: https://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr ; Unique identifier: UMIN000020377.

In this report, we present two cases in which benzodiazepines (BZDs) were able to be successfully reduced or discontinued by treatment with traditional Japanese herbal medicine (Kampo medicine), including Hangekobokuto (HKT). These two patients with long‐term use of BZDs due to mental disorders suffered epigastric symptoms. After starting Kampo therapy including HKT, their epigastric symptoms were improved and they were able to reduce or discontinue the use of BZDs. This suggests that HKT is a potentially promising substitutive pharmacotherapy for patients with long‐term use of BZDs. HKT should be considered as a treatment for patients with mental disorders who have taken BZDs for a long time and suffer from medically unexplained epigastric symptoms., In this report, we present two cases in which benzodiazepines were able to be successfully reduced or discontinued by treatment with traditional Japanese herbal medicine (Kampo medicine), including Hangekoubokutou (HKT). HKT is a potentially promising substitutive pharmacotherapy for patients with long‐term use of benzodiazepines.

In this report, we present a case in which long‐term swelling and pain because of an ankle sprain were successfully treated with the traditional Japanese herbal (Kampo) medicine Jidabokuippo. Jidabokuippo was created in Japan and has been used to treat swelling and pain associated with trauma. A 44‐year‐old woman sprained her right ankle and received the standard treatments including icing and immobilization for three weeks. However, the swelling, redness, and pain of her ankle continued for two months after the treatments. After initiating Jidabokuippo, her pain and swelling were promptly improved. This suggests that Jidabokuippo is a potentially promising pharmacotherapy for patients with ankle sprain which has not recovered smoothly. It is said that Jidabokuippo can be prescribed simply referring to pain and swelling of the affected areas; therefore, it should be considered as a treatment for trauma patients with long‐term swelling and pain., Jidabokuippo could be a useful medication for patients with ankle sprain which has not recovered quickly. Jidabokuippo can be prescribed simply referring to swelling and pain of the affected areas . his information may be valuable for primary care physicians who have to treat non‐internal medicine‐related health problems.

ObjectiveWe investigated whether serum high-sensitivity C reactive protein (hs-CRP) levels measured in an emergency department (ED) are associated with inhospital mortality in patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD).DesignA retrospective cohort study.SettingED of a teaching hospital in Japan.Participants12 211 patients with CVD aged ≥18 years who presented to the ED by an ambulance between 1 February 2006 and 30 September 2014 were evaluated.Main outcome measuresInhospital mortality.Results1156 patients had died. The inhospital mortality increased significantly with the hs-CRP levels (ConclusionOur findings suggest that increased hs-CRP is a significant risk factor for inhospital mortality among patients with CVD in an ED. Particular attention should be given to our finding that non-CVD death is a major cause of death among patients with CVD with higher hs-CRP levels.

It is well established that iron is one of the major constraints of primary productivity of marine diatoms in world oceans. In the present study, changes in the transcript levels of the 20 iron related genes were profiled in the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum during an early stage of acclimation from iron replete to iron-limited conditions. The results clearly showed that the profiles differ depending on genes, suggesting the occurrence of several modes of iron-responsive regulation at the transcriptional level. Upstream DNA sequences of iron starvation induced protein1 (Isi1), ferrichrome binding protein1 (FBP1), and flavodoxin (Fld) genes were isolated, fused with the GUS reporter gene, uidA, and transformed into P. tricornutum. Obtained transformants were subjected to the GUS reporter assay and the result clearly revealed that the GUS activity of all transformants was significantly increased upon iron limitation. Iron responsive Cis-elements in each promoter region were determined by the promoter truncation technique, demonstrating the occurrence of the critical iron-responsive regulatory regions of about 30bp in the promoter regions of three genes, Isi1, FBP1, and Fld. Interestingly, these sequences were similar with each other revealing two conserved motifs, A; A(A/C)G(G/C)C(G/-)C(A/G)TG; and B; CACGTG(T/C)C, which are homologous to the iron responsive Cis-element in the green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. The impairment of the motif B in the Isi1 promoter resulted in the loss of iron response and the core regulatory region of the FBP1 promoter conferred an iron response on the constitutive cytomegalovirus promoter, PCMV, indicating that these conserved promoter sequences are iron-responsive elements. Finally, the inductive regulation of these promoters under iron-limited conditions was dissipated specifically by 5% CO2, strongly suggesting the participation of CO2 in the transcriptional regulation of the iron-related gene promoters.

A few studies have examined the association between plasma glucose (PG) levels of emergency room (ER) patients and their in-hospital mortality (1–3), but the threshold value of hypoglycemia at which the risk is increased has not been established. The objective of the current study was to investigate this issue. A retrospective cohort study of ER patients and various risk factors for in-hospital death has been under way since 2014 at Iizuka Hospital (4), a teaching hospital with 1,048 beds located at the center of the Chikuho region of Fukuoka Prefecture on Japan's Kyushu Island. A detailed description of this survey has already been published (4). All 57,443 consecutive patients ≥18 years old who presented to Iizuka Hospital's ER by ambulance between 1 February 2006 and 30 September 2014 were evaluated. Among the 57,443 patients, 391 patients had repeated ER visits on two consecutive days; in those patients, only the index case was used, in order to comply with the assumption of independent observations. The 2,317 patients who experienced cardiopulmonary arrest, the 298 patients who were pregnant, and the 3,823 patients whose glucose level at baseline was not obtained were excluded. …

An emotional quality is a product quality that is evaluated by the customer’s subjective impressions, feelings and emotions. In the design of emotional qualities, one of the most important and difficult issues is setting quantitative evaluation criteria to evaluate such qualities. The customer’s sensitivity towards such qualities is diverse and latent. In our previous study, we proposed a quantification method of emotional qualities with attention paid to its diversity [1]. The method analyzes the diversity of emotional qualities and formulates their evaluation criteria based on the results of sensory tests. The authors formalized several emotional qualities expressed by adjectives using the proposed method with existing products. However, the variety of existing products was limited. The obtained evaluation criteria may not cover a design space where future designs would appear. In this paper, we propose a method to cover such untouched design space using composite samples in order to extract a potential factor of emotional quality for the future design. To create such a composite sample, we set efficient design features that take into consideration the completeness of design space and the diversity of a target emotional quality. In the method, we conduct two sets of sensory tests. One is using only existing design samples and another is using composite samples. We compare the results of the two tests in order to examine the repeatability of emotional scores among different sets of subjects and changes introduced by adding created samples. We apply the proposed method to extract potential emotional factors of product sound quantify. Using results of the sensory test with the created sound samples, we found two emotional evaluation factors. The first factor negatively related to loudness. The second factor related to lower sharpness and the existence of a perceivable peak tone around 500Hz. Most product makers are aware of the need to reduce loudness, i.e., the first factor. We found the second factor as a new evaluation criterion.Copyright © 2009 by ASME