Search

Background: Childhood asthma is known to be affected by a range of factors, including conditions in the indoor environment. While flooring material influences indoor air conditions, the potential association between flooring materials and childhood asthma remains poorly understood in Japan. Objective: The present study aims to assess the association between childhood asthma incidence and the primary flooring material with the ongoing prospective nationwide birth cohort data of the Japan Environment and Children's Study (JECS). Methods: The JECS gathered data on mothers and children through 15 Regional Centres across Japan. The present study assessed flooring materials used in the home and asthma incidence at age four among children born between 2011 and 2014. We implemented logistic regressions, setting asthma incidence among the children as the outcome and home floor type as the exposure. Additional analyses were conducted, stratifying the home's age as a proxy for tatami age, to assess whether the potential effect of tatami flooring on asthma risk is influenced by its age. Results: The present study included total of 75,629 infants. For tatami flooring, the main multivariable regression and additional sub-group regression for homes over ten years old produced odds ratios of 1.09; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) [1.01–1.17] and 1.10; 95% CI [1.00–1.21] compared with flooring, respectively. Conclusion: These results imply that exposure to tatami flooring, particularly in older homes, may be associated with childhood asthma incidence. Moreover, our study highlights the importance of evaluating the relationship between regional and cultural differences between asthma and flooring materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a compact magnetorheological (MR) fluid brake embedded in an orthosis was designed and fabricated to maintain plantar height for use in lateral fall prevention, and its performance and the fall prevention effect of the orthosis were evaluated. The results of the brake design and fabrication indicated that the MR fluid brake has the advantage of being compact, lightweight, and power-saving at 88.4 mm long, 128 g, using two AA batteries. Performance tests of the brake indicated that it was able to generate sufficient force (125 N) to maintain plantar height. Furthermore, through the assessments of lateral fall, the center of gravity and center of pressure inclination angle of a subject wearing the orthosis without the MR brake was determined to be 4.0°, as opposed to 4.4° with the MR fluid brake in the ON state. Therefore, the moment of force acting on the subject to prevent fall was larger, making them more stable when the MR fluid brake was in the ON state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central nervous system plays an important role in essential hypertension in humans and in animal models of hypertension through modulation of sympathetic activity and Na + and body fluid homeostasis. Data from animal models of hypertension suggest that the renin-angiotensin system in the subfornical organ (SFO) of the brain is critical for hypertension development. We recently reported that the brain (pro)renin receptor (PRR) is a novel component of the brain renin-angiotensin system and could be a key initiator of the pathogenesis of hypertension. Here, we examined the expression level and cellular distribution of PRR in the SFO of postmortem human brains to assess its association with the pathogenesis of human hypertension. Postmortem SFO tissues were collected from hypertensive and normotensive human subjects. Immunolabeling for the PRR and a retrospective analysis of clinical data were performed. We found that human PRR was prominently expressed in most neurons and microglia, but not in astrocytes, in the SFO. Importantly, PRR levels in the SFO were elevated in hypertensive subjects. Moreover, PRR immunoreactivity was significantly correlated with systolic blood pressure but not body weight, age, or diastolic blood pressure. Interestingly, this correlation was independent of antihypertensive drug therapy. Our data indicate that PRR in the SFO may be a key molecular player in the pathogenesis of human hypertension and, as such, could be an important focus of efforts to understand the neurogenic origin of hypertension. NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study provides evidence that, in the subfornical organ of the human brain, the (pro)renin receptor is expressed in neurons and microglia cells but not in astrocytes. More importantly, (pro)renin receptor immunoreactivity in the subfornical organ is increased in hypertensive humans and is significantly correlated with systolic blood pressure.