In order to study whether there is any relation between the cause of anemia in rural women and environmental factor from the epidemiological standpoint, we have followed up the seasonal change of the blood properties (GB, Hb, Ht, R, Serum iron) of 3 groups of women in different working and living circumstances.
The results revealed a remarkable tendency to increase the values of the blood properties excluding serum iron in winter and to decrease in summer. The degree of seasonal change was found to be greater in rural women than that in factory workers. And among the factory workers, the married had more change than the unmarried, the rural residents than the urban. And among the rural women, only the establishmental gardeners who were especially busy in winter showed a tendency to decrease the values of the blood properties in winter.
From these data, we can see that the seasonal change of the burden of agricultural work and the change of dietary life actually have direct influence on the change of the blood properties.

Nowadays the agricultural production system in the farm area has remarkably been changed and this has influenced the farmers in many aspects of life.
We tried by epidemiologic cross-sectional survey to ascertain the health level of 6, 597 farmers, who are self-supporting and middle class in the sixty-seven different districts of Kumamoto Prefecture. It is noticeable that judging from the difference of districts, the health level of the farmers who have a big gricultural production is low, and judging from the difference of the class, that of the farmers who have other jobs besides agriculture is low, too In general, the health level of males is relatively higher than that of females, but the health level of males is higher than that of females, depending on the class difference.
Generally speaking, we noticed that the health level of female is very low, and at the same time the variation of the health level of females is more remarkable than that of males, depending on the quality of the district in which they live.
These resutls of these investigations should be utilized as the basic materials source for a prospective survey of changing farm village from now.

Objective: To clarify the profile of cognitive dysfunction and the effects of intensive exercise in spinocerebellar degeneration (SCD). Methods: We enrolled 60 healthy controls and 16 patients with purely cerebellar type SCD without gait disturbance or organic changes other than cerebellar changes. To assess cognitive function, we evaluated the participants using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), and Montreal Cognitive Assessment-Japanese (MoCA-J) at admission and after intensive exercise. Results: Compared to the controls, SCD patients showed significant cognitive decline. As a result of intensive exercise, significant improvements in motor and cognitive functions were observed: the MMSE score improved from 27.7±1.9 to 29.0±1.3 points (p<0.001); the FAB score improved from 14.8±2.2 to 15.8±2.0 points (p=0.002); and the MoCA-J score improved from 24.6±2.2 to 26.7±1.9 points (p<0.001). For sub-scores, significant improvements were noted in serial 7, lexical fluency, motor series, and delayed recall. Conclusion Our study indicates that intensive exercise can be effective not only for motor dysfunction but also for cognitive dysfunction (Clinical Trial Registration No. UMIN-CTR: UMIN000040079).

OBJECTIVETo study the effects of Cow's milk on the reproduction in male mice.

METHODSTwenty-four male mice were divided randomly into two groups: milk group (M) and control group (C). Each mouse was given 10 mL milk per day from 4 to 16 weeks in the group M. At the age of 17 weeks, all the mice were sacrificed.

RESULTSSerum testosterone was decreased in the group M (P=0.037). No significant difference was found in weight of testes, seminal vesicle or adrenal gland of mice between the groups C and M. However, the weight of seminal vesicle decreased when expressed in g/100 g body weight in the group M. Epididymal sperm concentration, motility, morphology, and sperm head number were not affected by milk.

CONCLUSIONCow's milk has adverse effects on the reproductive system in ICR male mice. Further studies are needed to clarify the specific effects of milk on reproductive health.

Animals ; Cattle ; Diet ; Estradiol ; blood ; Infertility, Male ; Male ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred ICR ; Milk ; Reproduction ; physiology ; Sperm Count ; Testis ; pathology ; Testosterone ; blood

OBJECTIVEThe aim of this survey was to compare the seroprevalences ofHelicobacter Pylori (H. pylori) and chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG) in Tanzania and the Dominican Republic, both of which are tropical countries, and thereafter compare the prevalences in Tanzania and the Dominican Republic with prevalences from our previous studies done in Japan (1991) and China (1996/97).

METHODSCommunity-based study in which 573 inhabitants of Tanzania and 1,215 inhabitants of the Dominican Republic answered detailed questionnaires on upper digestive tract diseases, and then underwent screening for gastric cancer by serum pepsinogen and testing for antibody toH. pylori.

RESULTSAfter adjusting to the 'Age-Standardized Rate' (ASR) using the world population in 1995, the seroprevalences ofH. pylori infection in male and female subjects for Tanzania (m=85.3% & f=88.2%) were very high compared to those for the Dominican Republic (m=63.5% & f=62.4%) and Japan (m=62.0% & f=46.8%), and similar to those of China (m=78.0% & f=77.3%). Also, the agestandardized prevalences of CAG in males and females for Tanzania (m-0.237& f=0.458). were higher than those of the Dominican Republic (m=0.168 & f=0.211) and China (m=0.111 & f=0.107) and compared well with those of Japan (m=0.266 & f=0.352).

CONCLUSIONSAlthough Tanzania and the Dominican Republic are both developing countries, Tanzania had a very high age-standardized prevalence ofH. pylori and CAG compared to that of the Dominican Republic, which showed a trend similar to that of Japan.