To investigate the actual situation of obese children in a rural district and to make fundamental data available for taking steps to cope with the overweight problem, we performed a logitudinal study of obesity incidence in senior high school students over the whole period ofattendance at school from the first year until graduation. The subjects were 338 male and 387 female students. The degree of obesity was determined in accordance with Murata's index.
Our findings were compared with the results of a similar investigation covering 238 male and 163female senior high school students in an urban district of Hokkaido.
The obesity incidence was significantly (p<0.05) higher among the rural students than among their urban counterparts, regardless of sex. In the rural district, 18 boys and 17 girls had already been regarded as obese when they were admitted to their junior high school, and 14 (78%) of those boys and 7 (42%) of those girls remained obese until 14 years of age.
However, the number of obese children increased rapidly when they entered the period of adolescent growth spurt but most of those obese children came within normal range of body weight by 14 years of age.
Based on these characteristics of childhood obesity, we should encourage children, especially in early infancy, to have proper exercise and to follow good health practices.

To investigate the actual situation of obese infants in rural districts and the onset of obesity, we performed a longitudinal study of obesity incidence in day nursery infants aged from 2 to 6 years. The subjects were 124 males and 96 females. The degree of obesity was determined in accordance with Murata's index. Our findings were compared with the results of a similar investigation composed of 113 male and 95 female infants in an urban district of Hokkaido.
The obesity incidence was slightly higher among the rural infants than their urban counterparts, regardless of sex, but the difference was not significant (p<0.05). On this longitudinal study it was showed that the obesity incidence in males leaps at 3 and 4 years of age.
Based on these findings, we should encourage parents and infants, especially in early infancy, to have proper exercise and follow good health practice.

The incidences of obesity in school children of urban area were compared with those of rural area, using Rohrer index as a parameter of obesity.
Body weight and height were measured in primary schools of both areas on May, 1982. The subjects studied were 2054 boys and 1887 girls in the ages from 6 to 12 years.
Incidences of obesity in urban and rural areas were 7.5% and 8.6% respectively (p<0.05).
For boys, average incidences of obesity in urban and rural school were 8.1%, and 7.5%, respectively. For girls, they were 7.2%, and 7.6%, respectively.
These results showed that there were no significant differences in incidences of obesity between the two districts and both sexes of school children.
We also found the eight cases of fatty liver in obese children.They were six boys and two girls, aged from 8 to 15.
In 7 of eight cases, obesity started from early childhood. During the first six months of life, they were fully fed cows milk formula. Of the cases, one developed hypertension, and two had hyperlipidemia.
With accurate exercise and optimal nutritional treatment, obesity, hepatic involvement and hypertension promptly improved. However, three cases had frequent recurrences.
Abdominal CTwas examined in six cases of the eight obese children with hepatic involvement. They showed that there were low CT numbers of liver in obese children with hepatic involvement.
The usefulness of abdominal CT in terms of evaluation of fatty liver in obese children was discussed.

Background/Aims: Intestinal fibrosis is a major complication of Crohn’s disease (CD). The profibrotic protein transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) has been considered to be critical for the induction of the fibrotic program. TGF-β has the ability to induce not only the expression of extracellular matrix (ECM) including collagen, but also the production of plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) that prevents enzymatic degradation of the ECM during the onset of fibrotic diseases. However, the significance of PAI-1 in the developing intestinal fibrosis has not been fully understood. In the present study, we examined the actual expression of PAI-1 in fibrotic legion of intestinal inflammation and its correlation with the abnormal ECM deposition. Methods: Chronic intestinal inflammation was induced in BALB/c mice using 8 repeated intrarectal injections of 2,4,6-trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS). TM5275, a PAI-1 inhibitor, was orally administered as a carboxymethyl cellulose suspension each day for 2 weeks after the sixth TNBS injection. Results: Using a publicly available dataset (accession number, GSE75214) and TNBS-treated mice, we observed increases in PAI-1 transcripts at active fibrotic lesions in both patients with CD and mice with chronic intestinal inflammation. Oral administration of TM5275 immediately after the onset of intestinal fibrosis upregulated MMP-9 (matrix metalloproteinase 9) and decreased collagen accumulation, resulting in attenuation of the fibrogenesis in TNBS-treated mice. Conclusions PAI-1-mediated fibrinolytic system facilitates collagen degradation suppression. Hence, PAI-1 inhibitor could be applied as an anti-fibrotic drug in CD treatment.