The objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of Hericium erinaceum (Yamabusitake) and Grifola frondosa (Maiteke) on the proliferation for EL4-tumor and immunoregulatory function by flow cytometory.
It was found that Yamabushitake and Maitake tend to inhibit the proliferation of EL4-tumor individually. In the flow cytometory analysis, Maitake-treatment showed the preserve effect against the depression effect by bearing EL4-tumor on cytotoxic T cell and NK-cell from spleen cell. This effect was shown more clear in the group of mixture Yamabusitake and Maitake.

Purpose: Pharmacists should play a positive role in palliative care. The pharmacy curriculum should also contain content promoting an appropriate attitude toward death. Hence, this study aims to gather fundamental information that can be used to understand the various death attitudes held by pharmacy students. Methods: We targeted 159 sixth-year students of the School of Pharmacy, Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences, in 2011. They studied "Up-to-date-Palliative-Care" (an elective subject). To investigate their overall perception of death, we used the Death Attitude Inventory (DAI), developed by Hirai and others (2000), and investigated their views of death on the basis of seven factors. We also classified students on the basis of type of death they had experienced, that is, the death of a household, relative, friend, or pet. We compared the scores obtained for each factor and conducted a logistic regression analysis. Results and Conclusion: We analyzed the data from 120 students (valid response rate: 75.5%). Students who had experienced the death of friend, had significantly higher scores on "Life Purpose" and "Death Concern" (p<0.05). Students who had experienced the death of household etc., statistical positive correlation with "Death Concern" and statistical negative correlation with "Death Anxiety" were recognized.

Objective: This study aimed to assess gynecologic oncologists (GOs)’ perceptions and attitudes toward cancer survivorship to help improve survivor care. Methods: We conducted a web-based questionnaire survey about survivorship issues for the GOs belonging to the Japan Gynecologic Oncology Group. We analyzed the proactiveness of the participants toward addressing 25 survivor issues. In addition, the practice patterns and barriers to care for survivors’ long-term health issues, such as second primary cancer (SPC) and lifestyle-related diseases (LSRD), and return-to-work (RTW) support were assessed. Results: We received 313 responses. The respondents had a mean of 22 years of physician experience. The ratio of men to women was approximately 7:3, and 84.7% worked at facilities for multidisciplinary cancer treatment. The respondents’ proactiveness for addressing psychosocial problems was significantly lower than physical and gynecological issues (p<0.01 by χ2 test). However, most GOs tried to contribute to such issues according to patients’ demands. Women GOs were more proactively involved in some survivorship issues than the men (p<0.05 by logistic regression analysis). The rates of the respondents who proactively discussed SPC, LSRD, and RTW were unexpectedly high (60.7%, 36.1%, and 52.4%, respectively). However, the GOs only provided verbal support for these issues in many cases. Conclusion The Japanese GOs were enthusiastic about survivorship care. However, their tendency to deal with survivors’ problems through their own knowledge and judgments raises concerns about the quality of care. Therefore, creating survivorship care guidelines and enhancing multidisciplinary collaboration should be prioritized.

　　Chronic kidney disease (CKD) has recently been reported to be an independent risk factor for stroke. However, a detailed analysis was yet to be conducted according to stroke subtype. We attempted to determine the risk factors for stroke using data from the “specific health checkup” for metabolic syndrome conducted by the 9 hospitals affiliated with the Akita Prefectural Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, and evaluate and determine the risk factors for stroke. There were 401 patients who had undergone metabolic syndrome checkups from 2007 and 2010 and suffered from stroke afterwards within 3 years after the screening. The controls were all 69,407 subjects who were screened during the same period. The predictors examined were sex, age, blood pressure, BMI, cholesterol values (HDL・LDL), history of diabetes mellitus, presence of atrial fibrillation, CKD, and drinking and smoking habits. Analysis was conducted using logistic regression. The risk factors for stroke as a whole were male sex, age, blood pressure, diabetes, atrial fibrillation, CKD, and smoking history. For cerebral infarction, the risk factors were male sex, age, blood pressure, diabetes, atrial fibrillation, CKD, and smoking habit. The risk factors for cerebral hemorrhage were age, blood pressure, and CKD. For subarachnoid hemorrhage, the risk factors were female sex, age, blood pressure, low HDLemia, and CKD. In conclusion, CKD is an independent risk factor for the 3 subtypes of stroke, and in particular plays an important role as a higher risk factor for cerebral hemorrhage. Smoking cessation and controls of blood pressure, diabetes and atrial fibrillation are the important measures for stroke prevention. In addition, the further intervention should also be targeted to those with the result of CKD revealed by specific health checkups.