A total of 206 residents (76 males and 130 females) of a rural area of Hokkaido, Japan, attending a health check in August, 1997, were studied to assess the relationship between serum carotenoids and atrophic gastritis (AG). Of the participants, 91 had AG, as indicated by their serum levels of pepsinogen I and pepsinogen II. Logistic regression analysis, after adjusting for gender and age, revealed that the odds ratios for serum carotenoid levels were lower for subjects with high serum levels of α-carotene (odds ratio, 0.41; 95% C.I., 0.19−0.88) and β-carotene (odds ratio, 0.41; 95% C.I., 0.18−0.91) than for those with low serum carotenoid levels. In addition, the odds ratios of subjects with high serum levels of β-cryptoxanthin (odds ratio, 0.60; 95% C.I., 0.28−1.31), provitamin A (odds ratio, 0.38; 95% C.I., 0.17−0.85), and retinol (odds ratio, 0.67; 95% C.I., 0.31−1.48) were found to be lower than the odds ratios for those with low serum levels. Odds ratios for subjects with high serum zeaxanthin/lutein levels were higher than odds ratios for those with low serum levels. These results suggest that frequent intake of foods rich in carotenoids with provitamin A activity may reduce the risk of AG.
Serum ; Carotenoids ; Carbon ion ; Hokkaido ; Silver

Purpose
Half body bathing is popular among young women as well as elderly people. As a matter of fact, it is reported that half body bathing has a smaller burden than whole-body bathing from the point of physical influence. To clarify the relation between bathing habitude and health maintenance, that is, as an approach to general understanding the physiological effects by repeating bathing stimuli, the physiological changes by continuing half body bathing were studied.
Methods
Half body bathing was repeated for 4 weeks in healthy female subjects (N=10, age: 30.1±4.8, height: 160.4±6.1cm, weight: 55.6±7.0kg, body mass index: 20.9±1.6kg/m², mean±SD).
Bathing was performed for 30 minutes and 3times a week, with a level of epigastrium without immersing arms. Changes of blood flow and energy expenditure were measured during bathing at 0W and 4W.
Results and Discussion
By continuing bathing, blood flow increased more rapidly and higher during bathing, in addition, resting energy expenditure increased by 200kcal/day with a significant difference.
From these findings, it is assumed that repeated half-body bathing enhances the increase of blood flow through repeating thermal stimuli, which leads to elevated basal metabolism.

Many patients who receive general acupuncture treatment have many complaints concerning their autonomic nervous systems. Applying CMI and CMI type classification (Abe method-a variation of CMI) to 100 new patients who came to our clinic last year, we found vegetative dystonia in half of them. Upon this finding, the following examinations were carried out by means of an function test of autonomic nervous system developed by Kageyama et al.: the coefficient of variation (CV) of R-R interval in ECG obtained through the function test is regarded as an expression of vagal function.
(1) Using this test, the participation of the autonomic nervous system in the condition of those patients who visited our clinic was examined.
(2) Effects of acupuncture treatment on the autonomic nervous system were examined.
(3) Acupuncture stimulation was separately applied to S36 (Zusanli), P4 (Ximen) and Liv3 (Taichong) to examine the influence of the acupuncture point location on the CV obtained through the test.
Results:
(1) 15 new patients (25%-comparatively high rate) showed low CV (less than 2%) of R-R interval in ECG.
(2) In some cases, acupuncture treatment caused an increase in CV.
(3) Acupuncture caused pulse infrequens: R-R interval showed a tendency toward prolongation during the in situ needle technique and after withdrawing the needle on each of the three points (S36, P4 and Liv3). CV increased after withdrawing the needle on either S36 or Liv3 and shortly after needle insertion and after withdrawing the needle on P4.
These result suggest that many patients who receive acupuncture treatment have additional disorder in parasympathetic nervous system which can be improved through acupuncture.

The changes of hemodynamics during bathing in patients with heart diseases were studied by invasive methods using a Swan-Ganz catheter and UCG. As a population, we have used 37 peatients with heart disease, ages 20 to 76 (average age 52.9). There were 26 cases of myocardial infarction, 5 cases of valvular disease, 5 cases of cardiomyo pathy, and 1 case of VSD. Bathing was done with tap water in a Hubbard tank, for 10 minutes at 40°C and for 5 minutes at 43°C in a supine position. Arterial pressure, heart rate, pulmonary arterial pressure, pulmonary wedge pressure, right atrial pressure, cardiac output, stroke volume and stroke work index were increased during bathing and decreased after bathing. Systemic vascular resistance and pulmonary arteriolar resistance were decreased during bathing. Their changes were marked with a bath of 40 to 43°C. These findings suggest that preload may be increased during bathing, and preload and afterload reduced after bathing. Hydrostatic pressure, autonomic nervous reflexes or endocrine system were thought of as possible reasons for the increase in pulmonary arterial pressure. Because pulmonary arterial pressure, pulmonary wedge pressure and right atrial pressure increased during bathing even though systemic vascular resistance and pulmonary arteriolar resistance decreased, increase in venous return was thought of as the biggest possibility. And because the patients with low cardiac function could not control the extent of increase in venous return, pulmonary arterial pressure increased markedly in patients with low cardiac function. The patients with myocardial infarction were classifed into a group showing elevation of pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP) and a group showing no elevation of PAP. The group showing elevation of PAP, compared with that without PAP elevation, included many cases of severe myocardial infarction deter-mined by Forrester's classification, Killip's classification and Peel's prognostic index at admission to hospital. Among these patients showing PAP elevation, there were more cases having low physical work capacity and low ejection fraction at discharge from hospital than among the patients without PAP elevation.

Operations were performed 3 times on ventricular septal perforation after acute myocardial infarction which exhibited cardiogenic shock, and the patient's life was saved successfully. The case was a female aged 64. Ventricular septal perforation developed in 6 hours after onset of acute myocardial infarction, and an emergency operation was performed because the patient exhibited cardiogenic shock. Intraventricular re-shunt was observed on the postoperative 5th day, and second operation was performed on the postoperative 7th day because a trend of cardiac insufficiency was intensified. Intraventricular re-shunt was observed again on the 5th day of the second operation, but third operation with a principle that further operation is to be performed awaiting regeneration of the tissue on the perforated margin to occur since the circulatory kinetics were seen to have been stabilized. The postoperative course was favorable, and the patient was discharged on 53 rd day of the third operation with the symptom alleviated. It was considered that our policy is to have to repeat operation when the patient's movement of circulation deteriorate at re-shunt from our experience of this time.

We performed a retrospective study of the effects of steroids and the factors that deteriorate renal function in 30 patients with primary focal segmental glomerular sclerosis. The mean observation periods from the onset of proteinuria and from the histological diagnosis by renal biopsy were 6.1 ± 5.0 years and 3.9 ± 3.01 respectively. 87% of the patients had been recerving steroid therapy with or without other drugs. In this study, the patients were divided into 3 groups by the initial dose of steroids. A multivariate analysis was performed on the laboratory findings of the 3 groups. In a short-term observation, there were no significant defferences among the groups. However, in a long-term observation (more than one year) it was clarified that the patients who had been given high doses of steroids tend to maintain their renal functoin. We also found that the patients responding to steroids showed a significantly better prognosis than steroid-resistant patients upon examination their nephrotic status and renal functoin.
This statistical analysis confirmed that the factors deteriorating the renal function are hypertension and hyperlipidemia.
In addition, it was revealed that hyperuricemia, is responsible for the renal dissease, failure?

A 61-year-old man admitted to another hospital because of cerebral infarction had fever (about 39°C). Computed tomographic scanning revealed a pseudoaneurysm of the brachiocephalic artery, accompanied by pericardial fluid. The patient was transferred to our hospital. Culture studies of a sample of pericardial fluid revealed Staphylococcus aureus. A mycotic pseudoaneu-rysm of the brachiocephalic artery was diagnosed. Antibiotics were given for about 2 weeks after transfer to our hospital. Surgery was performed after the inflammation subsided. The pseudoaneurysm was incised during circulatory arrest. A hole measuring 2cm in diameter was found at the origin of the brachiocephalic artery. The hole was sealed with an autologous arterial patch, made from a 3-cm section of the right axillary artery. The axillary artery was reconstructed by end-to-end anastomosis. After surgery, infection was controlled by means of systemic antibiotics and closed mediastinal lavage. The patient was discharged from the hospital in good condition 160 days after surgery. To date, there has been no flare-up of infection.