Footbath is a safe and easy thermal therapy, however, it may cause stress on our body depending on the temperature. Temperature dependent changes of stress biomarkers in the saliva or urine, and of R-R variability by footbath were studied, and mechanism of effects and side effects were discussed.
Subjects were 14 healthy adult females (32±6 yeas old). The experiments started after permission of the Ethical Committee of International Research Center for Traditional Medicine. They took footbath at 38, 40, 42°C and control study after providing informed consents. They took footbath after 10min rest in a sitting position. Each footbath was 30min long, followed by 10min rest. The same subject participated in the studies four times at the same time of day before lunch. These experiments were in a random order four days apart each other except menstruation periods. Their ECG R-R variability and their concentration of salivary IgA and urinary 8 (OH) dG/creatinin were measured before and after footbath. The autonomic nervous balance was estimated from FFT analysis of the R-R variability; LF (0.04-0.15Hz) and HF (0.15-0.40Hz).
The results indicated that at 40 and 42°C their autonomic nervous balance estimated from LF/HF or HF power changed to sympathetic predominance. At 38, 40 and 42°C, salivary IgA increased significantly, and at 40 and 42°C, urinary 8 (OH) dG/creatinin increased significantly, while no significant change occurred in the control study.
These results indicated footbath for 30min at 40 and 42°C induced sympathetic predominance and caused oxidative stress. It was reported that oxidative stress induced activation of platelet aggregation. The oxidative stress as well as sympathetic activation may be related with the causes of the accidents during hot bathing as well as with the effects of thermal therapy. Further investigations are worth being performed.

Footbath have long been used for primary health care or for nursing, however, few researches have been reported. We intended to make footbath a safe physiotherapy or care technique in the modern medicine by more profound researches on footbath. The effect of footbath on the gastric motility was studied because footbath may promote recovery from post-surgical gastric paresis. The effects of footbath on the gastric motility and subjective hunger sensation were monitored in 14 healthy adult females (32±6 yeas old). They signed informed consents and took footbaths at 38, 40, 42°C and control footbath (by a footbath machine). The experiments started after permission of the Ethical Committee of International Research Center for Traditional Medicine.
They took footbath after 10-min rest in a sitting position. Each footbath was 30 min long, followed by 10-min rest. The same subject participated in the studies four times at the same time of the day before taking lunch (10:00-14:00). These experiments were in a random order four days apart each other except menstruation periods. Their blood pressure, ECG R-R variability and electro-gastrogram (EGG) were monitored. The subjective hunger sensation was asked before, during and after footbath. The autonomic nervous balance was estimated from FFT analysis of the R-R variability. LF (0.04-0.15Hz) and HF (0.15-0.40Hz) components of the R-R variability were calculated. EGG was also analysed by means of FFT to calculate amplitude and frequency. The results showed the amplitude and frequency of EGG increased depending on temperature. However, the correlation between HF power of R-R variability and amplitude of EGG showed negative correlation. Regarding hunger sensation, more cases felt hunger in 38, 40°C than in control. At 42°C, the amplitude and frequency were apparently higher than in other temperatures, while the hungry cases were less than in 38 or 40°C. These discrepancies may be caused by the artifact due to sweating on the abdominal EGG leads, considering high b wave of EEG at 42°C.
In conclusion, it was indicated that footbath may promote gastric motility and induce hunger sensation at 38-40°C in healthy volunteers.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂)-enriched water, one of the Japanese pharmacopeias, has been used as an alternative thermotherapy to treat the intractable diabetic skin diseases. However, few scientific researches on the physiological effects of CO₂-enriched footbath have been reported. Fifteen males (aged 22-52, 31±10) took part in this study after providing their written informed consents. They took three kinds of footbath (plain water, CO₂-enriched water and control without water) at 38°C for 30min in random sequence. Their core temperature from oral and tympanic membrane, cutaneous blood flow, tissue hemoglobin concentration at the cerebral frontal cortex and trapezoid muscle, systemic blood pressure, heart rate variability, salivary IgA, comfortable feeling with face scale were measured before, during and after footbath. CO₂-enriched footbath showed significant physiological effects on the systemic and peripheral circulation. Local (under water) cutaneous blood flow, and tissue blood flow of the frontal cortex were significantly higher than in the plain water footbath. The systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate in CO₂-enriched footbath were also lower than those in the plain water footbath. Heart rate variability of CO₂-enriched footbath showed an decrease of LF/HF ratio and more HF/(LF+HF) ratio than that of plain water footbath. These parameters indicated lesser stress for the heart in CO₂-enriced footbath than in the plain water footbath. The relaxing effect of CO₂-enriched footbath was also indicated from the results of face scale and salivary IgA concentration. All of these results supported that the CO₂-enriched footbath was less stressful and more relaxing, and had more physiological effects on the local systemic and cerebral circulatory system and autonomic nervous system than plain water footbath.

It has been almost ten years since Huaier products were first introduced to Japan as a health food. Due to its positive results on tumor treatment, Huaier became a notable Traditional Chinese Medicine and even, doctors of Kampo Medicine, Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and Integrative Medicine in Japan are gradually becoming aware of it. In fact, Huaier products have also been confirmed to be effective against noncancer-related diseases, such as respiratory and kidney diseases. In this paper, we summarized and discussed in detail scientific evidences supporting its application to diseases other than cancer.

 Physiological changes induced by the localized bathing of hands, feet, and simultaneous hand-foot baths were studied and compared with each other in order to elucidate the physiological mechanism of hand and foot baths. Fifteen healthy adult males (32±10years old) took hand, foot, and simultaneous hand-foot carbonated (module mixture type artificial carbonated bath, at a CO₂, concentration of 1,100±100 ppm, pH 4.8) and freshwater baths (pH 7.4) at 38°C, and assumed a control sitting position following a randomized controlled design. They took 7 kinds of localized baths mentioned above at 1-week intervals. Each localized bathing session involved a 5-minute rest in a sitting position, the 30-minute bathing, followed by a 10-minute rest. Subjects’physiological parameters, such as the heart rate, blood pressure, near infrared spectroscopy of the forehead, laser Doppler flowmetric findings for immersed (foot) and non-immersed (shoulder muscle) body surface capillary fiow, as well as the body temperature of sublingual and tympanic membranes were monitored.
 While no physiological changes occurred during the proximal 5-10 minutes after starting simultaneous hand-foot baths, the body temperature, cerebral tissue circulation, cutaneous blood flow of the non-bathed skin, and heart rate increased and the diastolic pressure decreased in the distal half of 30-minute carbonated and freshwater baths. These physiological changes would probably be due to the thermal effect.
 However, the proximal 5-10 minutes after staning hand and foot carbonated baths showed opposite autonomic changes, which disappeared in the simultaneous hand-foot carbonated baths. Freshwater localized hand and foot baths did not lead to such differences. The cutaneous blood flow of bathed skin of the hands and feet was also significantly different only in the carbonated baths, while no differences were obtained in the freshwater hand and foot baths.
 Taken together, 38 °C and 1,100 ppm carbonated localized baths (hands and feet) showed opposing heart rate variability just after staning bathing, and they induced different cutaneous blood flow changes during bathing. These physiological differences in hand and foot bathing may be due to somato-autonomic and axonal refiexes induced by skin nociceptive ion channels with different sensitivities and reactions due to the varying pH of the bathing medium, and due to different hydrostatic pressures of the hand and foot baths.

Objectives : The objective of this study is to develop a Japanese version of the Constitution in Chinese Medicine Questionnaire (CCMQ) in Chinese, which is comprised of 60 items with 9 sub-scales, and evaluate its reliability and validity. Methods : We conducted a survey of 130 participants in the Toyama area of Japan from Dec. 2005, to Feb. 2006. A test-retest method was used. Feasibility was evaluated by the response times to the questionnaire, and the response rates of the CCMQ items. Internal consistency within the sub-scales was assessed by Cronbach's α coefficient. Reproducibility was confirmed between the first and second occasions using weighted kappa and Spearman correlation. Lastly, criterion validity was evaluated by correlation between CCMQ and SF-36 sub-scales. Results : Response time was 8 minutes on average and its rate was nearly 100%. Internal consistency was achieved for each of the 9 sub-scales with a 0.65 to 0.79 α coefficient. Reproducibility ranged from 0.41 to 0.81 for the items, and from 0.79 to 0.88 for the sub-scales. Regarding the criterion validity, the “Gentleness type” sub-scale was positively correlated with SF-36 (0.46, P<0.001), while other 8 pathological constitutional types of the CCMQ were negatively correlated with SF-36 (-0.35 to -0.50, P<0.001) as expected. Conclusions : We developed a Japanese version of the CCMQ and found acceptable levels of reliability and validity using a survey of 130 subjects in Japan. This suggests that the CCMQ could be a useful tool in comparing the constitution profiles between Chinese and Japanese.
Japanese language ; Chinese People ; Questionnaires ; SF Brand of Topical Fluoride ; Medicine

Objective:
A rapid rise in blood pressure (BP) in the early morning is called morning BP surge and is known to be related to the onset of cerebrovascular or cardiovascular diseases. Exposure to cold temperature aggravates this condition. However, few studies have investigated the relationship between morning BP surge and bedroom temperature (BT). This study examined the effectiveness of a comfortable BT for mitigating morning BP surge.
Methods:
In this study, five healthy male university students (22.8±0.4 years old with BMI 21.7±1.3Kg/m²) volunteered to be subjects. The relative humidity in the bedroom was controlled to 50%, and the BT was set at 10°C and 250°C for two test conditions. From 0:00 to 8:00am, a Portapres Model-2 was used to measure BP continually at each beat. The average BP and heart rate (HR) from 2:00 and 4:00am were used as the baseline BP and HR. The changing rates of BP and HR from 4:00 to 7:30, the time and the BP value when BP started to rise, the time and the BP value when the BP reached the maximum, the BP value at the time of waking, and the time and rate of increase of BP until it reached the peak at temperatures of 10°C and 25°C were compared by means of the Wilcoxon signed ranking test.
Results:
The BP before waking started to rise later at 25°C than that at 10°C. BP rose more slowly at the higher BT than at the lower BT, especially 30 minutes after waking. At the lower BT, BP rose almost linearly, and the maximum rising rates were 37% (153.3mmHg) for systolic BP and 54% (97.6mmHg) for diastolic BP. At the higher BT of 25°C, however, BP reached the first peaks about 20 minutes after waking/getting up, and then remained stable. The maximum rising rate was 30% (14.2mmHg) for systolic BP and 33% (86.5mmHg) for diastolic BP. At the higher BT, BP reached the maximum value 40 minutes later for systolic BP and 60 minutes later for diastolic BP. At the lower BT, systolic BP exceeded the normal range, reached 140mmHg 35 minutes after getting up, remained stable for 55 minutes, and then rose to the maximum value of 153.3mmHg. In contrast, at the higher BT, the first peak of BP was significantly lower than that at the lower BT. Furthermore, the differences in BP between the first peak of BP and the BP value at the time of staring to rise and between the first peaks and the BP value at the time of waking up were significantly lower at the higher BT than those at the lower BT. The rising rates of BP from the time when BP started to rise and from the time of waking until reaching the maximum value were significantly lower at the higher BT than those at the lower BT.
Conclusions:
These results suggest that the margin of the rise in BP, the rising rate of BP, and the peak value of BP in the early morning are significantly lower at a BT of 25°C than those at a BT of 10°C. They also suggest that sleeping at a comfortable BT, especially during winter, may suppress morning hypertension or morning BP surge and indirectly prevent the onset of cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disease as well as related deaths. Although the subjects in this study were healthy young men, it was considered that the benefit of sleeping in warm bedroom for preventing morning BP surge may be increased for the elderly who are highly likely to have already suffered from such underlying diseases as hypertension.

A total of 120 measurements were made for pulse waveform of the radial artery in 73 male subjects in their twenties to forties. We then calculated the parameters in the four-factor concentrated constant circuit model using the method we had developed. From the waveform of the radial artery, we extracted forms equivalent to those referred to as normal, slippery, and string-like pulses according to the pulse-wave models described in the literature. By comparing these parameters, we could show quantitatively the differences in waveforms and related diagnoses of pulses.

In engineering, when the degrce of distortion of the waveform of the signal is expressed numerically, a coefficient called a distortion factor is used. In order to determine whether or not itis possible to quantify the difference in pulse waveforms in terms of a distortion factor, the authors carried out a Fourier analysis of the pulse waves of 74 cases (74 males between 20 and 40 years of age), calculating the distortion factor of these pulse waves. Employing the pulse wave scale devised by Zhaofu Fei et al, the Ping mai, Hua mai and Xuan mai were differentiated by means of the amplitude ratio of the dicrotic notch to the ejection wave. As a result of a comparison between the distortion factors of these three groups, the authors were successful in quantifying the differences between the wave forms in terms of a distortion factor.