We evaluated the influence of a twice-weekly group exercise program on visceral fat area (VFA) and plasma adiponectin (APN) in the elderly. Thirty-three community-dwelling elderly (age : 72.4±6.9 yrs) participated in a 12-week supervised, geriatric exercise training program (GET) followed by a 12-week unsupervised GET (u-GET), which included stretching, strengthening, and balance-training exercises. Participants were evaluated for physical fitness, blood glucose, HbA1c, triglyceride, cholesterol, insulin, and APN. VFA was measured by computed tomography. All measurements were taken before the GET (TR1), after 12-weeks of GET (TR2), and at the end of the u-GET (TR3). Twelve weeks of GET produced significant increases in physical function measures. Both walking speed and functional mobility values at TR3 were significantly higher than TR1 values. A significant reduction in VFA was seen at TR3 in men. APN progressively elevated from TR1 to TR3 in women. In the frail elderly, 12 weeks of GET effectively increased functional ability and APN. The beneficial effects on VFA and APN were sustained following the participation in the unsupervised setting, suggesting that the frail elderly should be encouraged to participate and maintain a resistance training routine to achieve preferable effects on both functional ability and cardiovascular risk factors.

Measuring the bioelectrical impedance (BI) is a simple and non-invasive method for estimating body fat or muscle mass. However, body impedance is affected by variations in the distribution of body fluid without reference to actual body fat or muscle mass. Twenty healthy college students (10 males, 10 females; mean age 21.0±2.3 years) participated in the study. Their mean body mass index was 20.7±2.6 kg/m². Bipolar electrodes were place on all extremities, and InBody 3.0^TM (Biospace Co., Ltd., Seoul, Korea) was used to measure bioelectrical impedance. Each subject remained in a supine position on a comfortable bed between 07:00 and 12:00 except for excretion and measurement of BI. BI was measured hourly using frequencies ranging from 5 to 500 kHz. The subjects refrained from eating, drinking and exercising between 07:00 and 12:00 during the first week of measurements, and drank 6.7 ml/kg of water at 07:00 after the first measurement of BI during a subsequent week of measurements. Bioelectrical impedance was higher in female subjects in all body segments and conditions (p<0.01). BI in the right arm was lower than that in the left in all participants (p<0.001). The difference between the highest and lowest BI among six measurements was largest in the upper extremities, followed by the lower extremities. Differences in the coefficient of variation CV values of the right arm of both females and males at 50, 250, and 500 kHz during fasting were significantly smaller than after drinking water. Hydration had no effect on the differences in the CV values of the body trunk and lower extremity BI or BI at lower frequencies. BI indicates the possibility of remarkable decrease in variation in the upper extremity BI at higher frequencies by taking 6.7 ml/kg of water at get up and enables minimizing the estimate error of body fat percentage.

A 78-year-old woman who had a history of left deep venous thrombosis was referred to our hospital with a sudden hemoptysis. Thoracic computed tomography showed a solitary pulmonary nodule in the right lower lobe. Based on her medical history of deep venous thrombosis, she was tentatively diagnosed as having pulmonary embolism and successfully treated by inserting an inferior vena cava filter and anticoagulant therapy with warfarin [Please confirm whether previous sentence is correct]. However, the lung nodule on thoracic computed tomography was still depicted four months later. With suspicion of a malignant tumor, including possible lung cancer, a right segmentectomy was performed. Pathological assessment of the resected specimen showed the tumor was derived from the right bronchial wall, but was not ruptured into the intratracheal lumen, as well as coexistence with intraalveolar hemorrhage near the tumor. The lung nodule was diagnosed as bronchial schwannoma. Thus, the origin of the hemoptysis was found to be pulmonary embolism due to deep vein thrombosis, and not by bronchial schwannoma, which was also present in the lung.