The purpose of this study was to clarify the effects of ingesting chloridquellen and bicarbonate spring waters on electrogastrography and heart rate variability in humans. The subjects were ten young adults (average age 21.9 years old). Three and six cycles per minute (cpm) frequency of electrogastrography (EGG) were measured, as well as the high-frequency (HF: 0.15-0.40Hz) components, and the ratio of low-frequency (LF: 0.04-0.15Hz) components to HF components in heart rate variability (HRV) during 90 minutes. The taste of the water and pain or abnormalities in the stomach were also assessed by having the subjects answer a questionnaire. The subjects ingested the spa water or purified water and were asked to respond to the questionnaire after thirty minutes, and they also ingested no water on a different day and were questioned. The EGG-6 cpm frequency, presumably reflecting intestinal activity, did not change under any conditions. The EGG-3 cpm frequency, presumably reflecting stomach activity, significantly increased with bicarbonate spring waters immediately after ingestion and decreased after 30 min. Additionally, the 3 cpm frequency significantly increased with ingestion of purified water over the course of 30 min. The HF components in HRV, presumably reflecting cardiac parasympathetic activity, did not change under any conditions. The ratio of LF to HF components in HRV, presumably reflecting cardiac sympathetic activity, significantly increased with ingestion of purified water immediately and after 15 min, and bicarbonate spring waters after 30 min. There was a difference between ingestion of chloridquellen and purified water in the answers concerning the taste of the water in the questionnaire. These findings suggest that the constituent parts of chloridquellen water and other factors activate stomach and autonomic nervous activities in humans.

OBJECTIVE: Rikkunshito, an herbal medicine, is widely prescribed in Japan for the treatment of anorexia and functional dyspepsia, and has been reported to recover reductions in food intake caused by cisplatin. We investigated whether rikkunshito could improve chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) and anorexia in patients treated with cisplatin. METHODS: Patients with uterine cervical or corpus cancer who were to receive cisplatin (50 mg/m² day 1) and paclitaxel (135 mg/m² day 0) as first-line chemotherapy were randomly assigned to the rikkunshito group receiving oral administration on days 0–13 with standard antiemetics, or the control group receiving antiemetics only. The primary endpoint was the rate of complete control (CC: no emesis, no rescue medication, and no significant nausea) in the overall phase (0–120 hours). Two-tailed p<0.20 was considered significant in the planned analysis. RESULTS: The CC rate in the overall phase was significantly higher in the rikkunshito group than in the control group (57.9% vs. 35.3%, p=0.175), as were the secondary endpoints: the CC rate in the delayed phase (24–120 hours), and the complete response (CR) rates (no emesis and no rescue medication) in the overall and delayed phases (63.2% vs. 35.3%, p=0.095; 84.2% vs. 52.9%, p=0.042; 84.2% vs. 52.9%, p=0.042, respectively), and time to treatment failure (p=0.059). Appetite assessed by visual analogue scale (VAS) appeared to be superior in the rikkunshito group from day 2 through day 6. CONCLUSION: Rikkunshito provided additive effect for the prevention of CINV and anorexia.
Administration, Oral ; Anorexia* ; Antiemetics ; Appetite ; Cisplatin* ; Drug Therapy ; Dyspepsia ; Eating ; Herbal Medicine* ; Humans ; Japan ; Nausea* ; Paclitaxel* ; Time-to-Treatment ; Vomiting*

Although programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) is a prognostic biomarker for nivolumab therapy, it is not very reliable due to its low accuracy. The pharmacological effect of nivolumab involves the cancer immunity cycle, a process that involves T cells, which are strongly associated with nutrition. In this study, we retrospectively investigated whether two measures of nutrition, namely, the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS) and the Prognostic Nutritional Index (PNI), could predict response to nivolumab as evaluated in terms of survival time. The subjects were 37 patients treated with nivolumab in the Department of Respiratory Medicine at our hospital between January 2017 and December 2018. Patients were classified into 2 PNI risk groups (low and high risk) and 3 GPS groups (0, 1, and 2), with lower GPS indicating better nutrition. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to compare differences between the PNI groups and between each possible pairing of GPS groups. Survival time was significantly longer for the low-risk PNI group compared with the high-risk PNI group and for a GPS score of 0 versus 2 and 1 versus 2, but there was no significant difference for a GPS score of 0 versus 1. These results show that GPS and PNI may be potential predictors of response to nivolumab in non-small cell lung cancer.