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Red meat consumption is associated with an elevated risk of mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs). In contrast, forage fish, as highly nutritious, environmentally friendly, affordable, and the most abundant fish species in the ocean, are receiving increasing interest from a global food system perspective. However, little research has examined the impact of replacing red meat with forage fish in the global diet on diet-related NCDs., Methods: We based our study on datasets of red meat projections in 2050 for 137 countries and forage fish catches. We replaced the red meat consumption in each country with forage fish (from marine habitats), without exceeding the potential supply of forage fish. We used a comparative risk assessment framework to investigate how such substitutions could reduce the global burden of diet-related NCDs in adults., Results: The results of our study show that forage fish may replace only a fraction (approximately 8%) of the world's red meat due to its limited supply, but it may increase global daily per capita fish consumption close to the recommended level. Such a substitution could avoid 0.5-0.75 million deaths and 8-15 million disability-adjusted life years, concentrated in low- and middle-income countries. Forage fish as an alternative to red meat could double (or more) the number of deaths that could be avoided by simply reducing red meat consumption., Conclusions: Our analysis suggests that forage fish is a promising alternative to red meat. Policies targeting the allocation of forage fish to regions where they are needed, such as the Global South, could be more effective in maximising the potential of forage fish to reduce the global burden of disease., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Researchers agree that there is substantial evidence of an increasing trend in both the frequency and duration of extreme temperature events. Increasing extreme temperature events will place more pressure on public health and emergency medical resources, and societies will need to find effective and reliable solutions to adapt to hotter summers. This study developed an effective method to predict the number of daily heat-related ambulance calls. Both national- and regional-level models were developed to evaluate the performance of machine-learning-based methods on heat-related ambulance call prediction. The national model showed a high prediction accuracy and can be applied over most regions, while the regional model showed extremely high prediction accuracy in each corresponding region and reliable accuracy in special cases. We found that the introduction of heatwave features, including accumulated heat stress, heat acclimatization, and optimal temperature, significantly improved prediction accuracy. The adjusted coefficient of determination (adjusted R 2 ) of the national model improved from 0.9061 to 0.9659 by including these features, and the adjusted R 2 of the regional model also improved from 0.9102 to 0.9860. Furthermore, we used five bias-corrected global climate models (GCMs) to forecast the total number of summer heat-related ambulance calls under three different future climate scenarios nationally and regionally. Our analysis demonstrated that, at the end of the 21st century, the total number of heat-related ambulance calls in Japan will reach approximately 250,000 per year (nearly four times the current amount) under SSP-5.85. Our results suggest that disaster management agencies can use this highly accurate model to forecast potential high emergency medical resource burden caused by extreme heat events, allowing them to raise and improve public awareness and prepare countermeasures in advance. The method proposed in Japan in this paper can be applied to other countries that have relevant data and weather information systems., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Deng Ke reports financial support was provided by National Institute for Environmental Studies. The Corresponding author completed this study during an internship at the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Thermal safety guidelines with upper thresholds aim to protect athletes' health, yet evidence-based sport-specific thresholds remain unestablished. Experimenting with athletes in severely hot conditions raises ethical concerns, so we used a thermo-physiological model to validate the thresholds of guidelines for outdoor sports. First, the reproducibility of the joint system thermoregulation model (JOS-3) of core temperature has been validated for 18 sports experiments ( n  = 213) and 11 general exercise experiments ( n  = 121) using the Bland - Altman analysis. Then, core temperatures were predicted using the JOS-3 in conditions corresponding to the upper thresholds, and if the 90 th -99.7 th percentile core temperature value (corresponding to 0.3%-10% of the participants) exceeded 40°C, the thresholds were judged as potentially hazardous. Finally, we proposed revisions for sports with potentially hazardous thresholds. As a result, the JOS-3 could simulate core temperature increases in most experiments (27/29) for six sports and general exercises with an accuracy of 0.5°C. The current upper thresholds for marathons, triathlons, and football are potentially hazardous. Suggested revisions, based on specified percentiles, include: Football: revise from wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) 32°C to 29-31°C or not revise. Marathon: revise from WBGT 28°C to 24-27°C. Triathlon: revise from WBGT 32.2°C to 23-26°C. If conducting sports events under the revised upper thresholds proves difficult, taking measures for a possible high incidence of heat illness becomes crucial, such as placing additional medical resources, assisting heat acclimatization and cooling strategies for participants, and rule changes such as shorter match times and increased breaks., Competing Interests: TO is working full-time at the Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc., which is associated with research, consulting, and ICT solutions and has potential competing interests. The other authors declared no conflicts of interest., (© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

There are concerns about the impact of climate change on Olympic Games, especially endurance events, such as marathons. In recent competitions, many marathon runners dropped out of their races due to extreme heat, and it is expected that more areas will be unable to host the Games due to climate change. Here, we show the feasibility of the Olympic marathon considering the variations in climate factors, socioeconomic conditions, and adaptation measures. The number of current possible host cities will decline by up to 27% worldwide by the late twenty-first century. Dozens of emerging cities, especially in Asia, will not be capable of hosting the marathon under the highest emission scenario. Moving the marathon from August to October and holding the Games in multiple cities in the country are effective measures, and they should be considered if we are to maintain the regional diversity of the Games., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Changes in the environmental heat stress need to be properly evaluated to manage the risk of heat-related illnesses, particularly in the context of climate change. The wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) is a useful index for evaluating heat stress and anticipating conditions related to heat-related illness in the present climate, but projecting the WBGT with a sufficiently high temporal and spatial resolution remains challenging for future climate conditions. In this study, we developed a methodological framework for estimating the site-specific hourly resolution WBGT based on the output of general circulation models using only simple calculations. The method was applied to six sites in Japan and its performance was evaluated. The proposed method could reproduce the site-specific hourly resolution WBGT with a high accuracy. Based on the developed framework, we constructed future (2090s) projections under two different greenhouse gas emission pathways. These projections showed a consistent rise in the WBGT and thus the capacity to perform physically demanding activities is expected to decrease. To demonstrate the usefulness of the projected WBGT in planning adaptation measures, we identified the optimal working schedules which would minimize outdoor workers' exposure to heat at a specific site. The results show that a substantial shift in the working time is required in the future if outdoor workers are to compensate the effect of increased heat exposure only by changing their working hours. This methodological framework and the projections will provide local practitioners with useful information to manage the increased risk of heat stress under climate change.

A recent study showed that thermoregulatory-like cardiovascular responses can be invoked simply by exposure to visual information, even though the thermal environments are neutral and unchanged. However, it was not clear how such responses affect actual human body temperature regulation. We investigated whether such visually invoked physiological responses can substantively affect human core body temperature in a thermally challenging cold environment. Participants comprised 13 graduate or undergraduate students viewing different video images containing hot, cold, or no scenery, while room temperature was gradually lowered from 28 to 16 °C over 80 min. Rectal temperature, mean skin temperature, core to skin temperature gradient, and oxygen consumption were measured during the experiment. Rectal temperature was significantly lower when hot video images were presented compared to when control video images were presented. Oxygen consumption was comparable among all video images, but core to skin temperature gradient was significantly lower when hot video images were presented. This result suggests that visual information, even in the absence of thermal energy, can affect human thermodynamics and core body temperature.

Background: Some studies have reported gender differences in N170, a face-selective event-related potential (ERP) component. This study investigated gender differences in N170 elicited under oddball paradigm in order to clarify the effect of task demand on gender differences in early facial processing., Findings: Twelve males and 10 females discriminated targets (emotional faces) from non-targets (emotionally neutral faces) under an oddball paradigm, pressing a button as quickly as possible in response to the target. Clear N170 was elicited in response to target and non-target stimuli in both males and females. However, females showed more negative amplitude of N170 in response to target compared with non-target, while males did not show different N170 responses between target and non-target., Conclusions: The present results suggest that females have a characteristic of allocating attention at an early stage when responding to faces actively (target) compared to viewing faces passively (non-target). This supports previous findings suggesting that task demand is an important factor in gender differences in N170.

Background: Human core body temperature is kept quasi-constant regardless of varying thermal environments. It is well known that physiological thermoregulatory systems are under the control of central and peripheral sensory organs that are sensitive to thermal energy. If these systems wrongly respond to non-thermal stimuli, it may disturb human homeostasis., Methods: Fifteen participants viewed video images evoking hot or cold impressions in a thermally constant environment. Cardiovascular indices were recorded during the experiments. Correlations between the 'hot-cold' impression scores and cardiovascular indices were calculated., Results: The changes of heart rate, cardiac output, and total peripheral resistance were significantly correlated with the 'hot-cold' impression scores, and the tendencies were similar to those in actual thermal environments corresponding to the impressions., Conclusions: The present results suggest that visual information without any thermal energy can affect physiological thermoregulatory systems at least superficially. To avoid such 'virtual' environments disturbing human homeostasis, further study and more attention are needed.

Xylanase J of alkaliphilic Bacillus sp. strain 41M-1 contains a carbohydrate-binding module family 36 xylan-binding domain (XBD). Mutational analysis of the XBD revealed that Tyr237, Asp313, Trp317, and Asp318 were involved in Ca(2+)-dependent xylan-binding, and that Asp313 and Asp318 were especially important.

The purpose of this study was to elucidate the fat-loading effect of the classic 1-wk glycogen-loading regimen histologically in rats and physiologically in humans. In the rat and human studies, an exhaustive swimming exercise and cycle ergometer exercise were loaded on day 1 of a 6-d feeding period, respectively. Thereafter, both the rats and humans were divided into a glycogen-loading regimen consisting of a 3-d high-fat diet and a 3-d high-carbohydrate diet or a 6-d high-carbohydrate diet. After the feeding period in the human study, the human subjects performed a test exercise on day 7 using a cycle ergometer. In the rat study, the intramuscular triglyceride (IMTG) content was 69% greater (p<0.05) after the glycogen-loading regimen than after the high-carbohydrate diet feeding on day 7. In the human study, the respiratory exchange ratios (RER) after the glycogen-loading regimen were 4.9-6% lower than those after the high-carbohydrate diet during the test exercise on day 7 (p<0.05). Our findings suggest that the classical 1-wk glycogen-loading regimen maintained the storage and enhanced the utilization of energy sources during exercise in the skeletal muscle, and that it provides a fat-loading effect, in addition to the glycogen-loading effect, to the skeletal muscle.

Xylanase J (XynJ) of alkaliphilic Bacillus sp. strain 41M-1 is a multi-domain enzyme and consists of a glycoside hydrolase (GH) family 11 catalytic domain and an additional xylan-binding domain (XBD) belonging to carbohydrate-binding module (CBM) family 36. Random mutations were introduced into the XBD gene and the repertoire was cloned for display on the surface of filamentous phage. The mutant XBD with amino acid substitution T316I (Thr317 was replaced by Ile) showed higher xylan-binding activity compared to the wild-type XBD. Furthermore, hydrolyzing activity of XynJ toward insoluble xylan was also improved by introducing the mutation T316I.