The comfortability and safety on resort were investigated in terms of resort environments focusing on atmosphere temperature.
With regard to the comfortability, first, a discomfort index (DI) defined with atmosphere temperature and relative humidity was demonstrated to be associated with indicators of autonomic nerve activities derived from heart beat variability at the level around DI-70 which was classified into the category of “comfortable for most of people”.
Secondarily, it was suggested that the index could be available to evaluate comfortability for given time courses at different resort points with an example of its hourly average in 24 hours a day for a representative month in each season. With regard to the safety, first, stroke incident rate of each month was associated with monthly average atmosphere temperature when the relationship was analyzed using around ten thousands patients data for 7 years from the community-based stroke registration for in Toyama prefecture. On top of that, it has been demonstrated that the atmosphere temperature on one and two days prior to the stroke development was independently effective on the risk of cerebral hemorrhage and subarachnoidal hemorrhage development with the adjustment for patient's sex and age, calendar year, season, relative humidity and atmosphere pressure. Secondarily, morning raise in blood pressure was affected by the room temperature (10°C and 25°C). The lower temperature the more raise in blood pressure.

In order to investigate effects of deep sea water bathing on psycho-physiological status, body temperature, circulatory and autonomic nervous system functions, and questionnaires on refreshment and sleep were evaluated in comparison with other 3 kinds of bathing including sham (no water), surface sea water and tap water. The skin temperatures of both tights and lower back were significantly higher for only deep sea water bathing compared with the sham bathing. It was also the case for tympanic temperature. Concerning circularly and autonomic nervous functions there were no significant difference between 4 kinds of bathing. For refreshment and sleep quality both sea water bathing showed higher scores, but not consistently significant differences. However, when taking any kind of bath shorter sleep latency was related to higher cardiac parasympathetic activity during sleep.

In order to investigate the effects of deep sea water bathing on relaxation and daylight sleep in night shift workers, electroencephalography, circulatory and cardiac autonomic functionings, visual evoked potential, biochemical markers in urine and saliva, core body temperature, sleep questionnaires, and mood state questionnaires were evaluated in nine subjects to compare with other three kinds of bathing including sham (no water), tap water and surface sea water. Deep sea water bathing showed better subjective sleep latency for sleep questionnaire (p<0.1) and significantly better vigor status for mood questionnaire (p<0.01) between four kinds of bathing. With regard to the objective data, despite the biggest increase in temperature of eardrum in deep sea water bathing, the highest sleep efficiency and the shortest wake period during sleep in electroencephalography did not reach to the significant level.

Bathing in water (balneotherapy or spa therapy) has been frequently and widely used in classical medicine as a cure for diseases. This paper reviews the present literature on the use of balneotherapy in dermatologic, chronic musculoskeletal (inflammatory and non-inflammatory), metabolic and psychological conditions.We performed a systematic review on related papers appearing in the Medline and Cochrane Library database from 1966 to 2003 that included randomized controlled and non-randomized clinical trials using balneotherapy. We also determined to reflect where possible the chemical compositions of spas.The major dermatologic and musculoskeletal diseases that are frequently treated by balneotherapy with a remarkable rate of success are atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis, osteoarthritis and low back pain. Moreover, the effects of spa therapy on several metabolic conditions are discussed. The mechanisms by which broad spectrums of diseases respond to spa therapy probably incorporate chemical, thermal and mechanical effects.The importance of balneotherapy either alone or as complement to other therapies should be considered after, or accompanying, orthodox medical treatments.

OBJECTIVESThis report investigates whether there is any association between sense of coherence (SOC), as a coping measure in confronting stressful conditions, and heart rate variability (HRV), as a measure of the cardiac autonomic nervous system during the daily life pattern.

METHODSSixteen healthy university students (14 males and 2 females) filled in the validated Japanese version of the SOC-13 questionnaire before being informed about the study protocol. For each participant, we calculated 5-minute HRV indices using logarithmically transformed data on frequency domains for HRV derived by 24-hour Holter monitoring. Frequency domains for HRV recordings were investigated for the 24-hour time periods.

RESULTSThe correlation coefficient between the SOC scores and the high frequency power of HRV (0.15-0.40) was positively significant during the resting sitting position (r≥0.60, P<0.05). After grouping SOC scores by the median, the high frequency domain of HRV was higher in high SOC subjects for most of the 24-hour time period.

CONCLUSIONA higher SOC could modulate the parasympathetic tone of cardiac autonomic activity, especially during the resting sitting position.

Currently, psychosocial stressors' impacts on health are increasing. Among these stressors, this review focused on inter-human relationships. Since social supports could be protective against ill health, consequences contributing to psychosocial stressors are discussed here in relation to social supports for each stage of childhood, adulthood and elderly status.For childhood, parental divorce/isolation, and child abuse/neglect appeared to be determinants of healthy development at either the initial or later stages. According to prospective studies, such stressors, especially those occurring until around 3 years of age, were associated with later adverse life quality in adulthood. Therefore, nationwide preventive strategies were developed in each country to monitor protective social programs.For adulthood, job strain was focused on Karasek's job strain model, effort-reward imbalance, employment grade and working hours. These psychosocial stressors were shown to affect not only the physical health but also the mental health of working people. These days, since Karoshi and even suicide related to excessive workloads are taking a toll on workplace organization, stress-coping abilities such as a sense of coherence were introduced from the individual-social interaction aspect.For elderly status, retirement, caring for the elderly, and spouse bereavement were discussed as psychosocial stressors. Some evidence indicates that these stressors could be determiants of health. Finally, social supports have been demonstrated to promote health and protect the elderly against diseases and death.

PURPOSEIt is known that a moderate to large volume of alcohol produces deterioration in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), however, no consensus has been achieved with respect to the influence of a moderate volume of alcohol on mild to moderate OSA. In this study, we investigated the influence of alcohol on OSA-associated parameters in healthy middle-aged males drinking a moderate volume of alcohol (<1 g alcohol/kg bodyweight per day).

METHODSSubjects were 23 healthy males (mean age of 46.0) with a habitual ingestion of moderate a mounts of alcohol. Respiratory sleep parameters were measured through the fitting of an Apnomonitor III (Chest Inc.) and portable sleep monitoring device (Actiwatch: AMI Inc.) to subjects on three nights; an alcohol-free night, a night on which they drank alcohol with dinner, and a night on which they drank alcohol within 30 minutes before retiring to bed. The measurements were categorized into the early and late halves of assumed sleep for analysis.

RESULTSThe apnea-hypopnea index was significantly higher when drinking alcohol before retiring [mean (SD): 7.8 (8.2) events/hour] than the values on the alcohol-free day [2.9 (4.5) events/hour] and when drinking alcohol with dinner [3.8 (5.3) events/hour]. Furthermore, drinking alcohol before retiring resulted in lower arterial blood oxygen saturation (SpO(2)) during the early half of sleep [94.8 (1.4) %] when compared to the values on the alcohol-free day [95.7 (1.3) %] and drinking alcohol with dinner [95.4 (1.6) %]. In addition, the percentage of time with SpO(2)<92% (hypoxic event) during the early half of sleep [4.9 (9.3) %] was significantly higher than the values on the alcohol-free day [1.2 (1.8) %] and when drinking alcohol with dinner [1.4 (1.8) %].

CONCLUSIONThese results suggest that moderate ingestion of alcohol within 30 minutes before retiring aggravates OSA-associated parameters in healthy males.