We have been holding “health fairs” at pharmacies with the aim of improving lifestyle habits. It is difficult for participants to improve these habits, and support from pharmacies is required. One possible reason for this is a lack of evidence to persuade participants to improve their lifestyle habits. However, in recent years, medical big data has been developed and accumulated. The National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups of Japan (NDB) collects data on insurance medical receipts (diseases) and specific health checkups (lifestyle habits and other information for approximately 30 million people). In this study, we aimed to clarify the correlation among “lifestyle habits” (including motivation to improve) using NDB Open Data Japan. Our results suggest that people do not exercise because they have good lifestyle habits; people who have problems with their eating habits or body mass index (BMI) are more motivated to exercise, although there are differences between men and women. We also found that “being able to eat just about anything” or “eating slowly” correlated to a decrease in BMI ≥25 kg/m2 and an increase in BMI 18.5 to <25 kg/m2. This suggests the importance of the dental area of mastication in BMI changes. In the future, we plan to provide health support in collaboration with the dental field. Correlation and causation are different, so further study is needed, but this study shows that the NDB can be useful in health support for individuals and society.

In this study, we aimed to clarify awareness regarding genetic testing among pharmacists in Hiroshima City to contribute to regional medical care provided in pharmacies. Pharmacists should consider the advantages and disadvantages of being able to easily receive genetic tests. We conducted an awareness survey on genetic testing among pharmacists belonging to the Hiroshima Pharmaceutical Association, at 645 pharmacies in Hiroshima City. Responses were received from 674 pharmacists, yielding a response rate of 43.4% (280 pharmacies). In response to the question, “Can you perform genetic testing at a pharmacy?”, 6.7% of pharmacists answered yes and 65.4% said this was impossible. Among the 92.4% of pharmacists other than those available, 79.6% answered “I am worried about my knowledge of genetic testing,” followed by 39.3% “cannot take the time,” 29.2% “hurdles for new business,” 28.1% “problems such as pharmacy facilities to protect personal information,” and 15.7% “ethical difficulties.” From the age difference, pharmacists do not carry out genetic testing even if they have knowledge; they need to make an ethical judgment to determine whether to conduct genetic testing. Additionally, although pharmacies provide medication guidance and protect personal information, 28.1% of pharmacists answered that there are problems with their pharmacy’s ability to protect personal information when handling “genetic information.” Pharmacists should consider it critical to treat “genetic information” as personal information, with the utmost care and understanding.

Introduction: There are many reports about hepatotoxicity associated with acute overdose or long-term use of acetaminophen, but few reports of that associated with therapeutic doses. We present a case of acute liver failure with hepatic coma caused by therapeutic doses of intravenous acetaminophen for cancer pain relief in palliative care setting. Case: The patient was a 56-year-old woman with stage IV lung cancer and normal liver function. She was admitted to the hospital because of anorexia and cancer pain. She received 1g intravenous acetaminophen every six hours for analgesia of pleural and rib metastasis. The patient’s AST/ALT levels were elevated at 3104/1212 IU/L, while she was receiving 11 doses of intravenous acetaminophen. She was treated with oral N-acetylcysteine, hemadsorption and plasma exchange therapy. Liver function returned to normal soon. Discussion: Therapeutic doses of intravenous acetaminophen is generally used in palliative care setting, and hepatic failure may occur due to glutathione depletion in patients with cancer anorexia. The potential hazard of rare but serious complications should always be kept in mind even with therapeutic doses.

The purpose of this study was to examine the age- and athletic event-related differences in trunk muscularity among junior and senior athletes. The cross-sectional areas (CSAs) of the rectus abdominis, lateral abdominal muscle group, psoas major and erector spinae were determined on magnetic resonance imaging for 188 junior athletes aged 12-18 years and 164 senior athletes aged ≥ 19 years in six different athletic events (male: archery, table tennis, Nordic combined, basketball, and wrestling; female: archery, table tennis, and gymnastics). To examine the age-related differences for each athletic event and sex, the subjects were classified into the following age groups: 12-15 years, 16-18 years and senior (≥ 19 years). The main results were as follows. 1) The magnitude relationships of trunk muscle CSA/height² differed among the age groups by athletic event and muscle. 2) The values of CSA/height² of the lateral abdominal muscle group and erector spinae were significantly larger in female gymnasts aged 12-15 years than in female athletes from the other athletic events. These results respectively indicated that 1) each trunk muscle has the potential to specifically develop according to the athletic events and 2) selective hypertrophy of the trunk muscles can be induced by training reflecting athletic event-specific characteristics in female junior high school athletes.

The objectives of this study were 1) to quantify the differences in body densities and percent body fat using various methods for evaluating body composition (e.g., underwater weighing (UWW), air displacement plethysmography (ADP), skinfold caliper (SKF) measurement, ultrasound (US), bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA)), and 2) to examine the relationship between trends of the differences in body density and percent body fat obtained by these methods and characteristics of morphology and body composition. To this end, the body compositions of 73 healthy male adults were measured using UWW, ADP, SKF, US, and BIA. Twenty-seven of these 73 subjects underwent further measurement using DXA. Differences in body densities determined with ADP, SKF, and US were compared with those measured using UWW as a reference, and the differences in percent body fat estimated with UWW, ADP, SKF, US and BIA were compared with those measured by DXA as a reference. The results of this study indicate that 1) ADP is useful as a method for evaluating body density, as the results differed insignificantly from the reference method and showed no systematic errors due to differences in morphological characteristics and body composition, and 2) UWW measurements exhibited the smallest difference in percent body fat from the reference method, however, more than in any other method, there were systematic errors due to differences in morphological characteristics and body composition, specifically, trunk composition.

We investigated whether preference for sucrose solution changes after exercise and whether the change influences post-exercise recovery of body fluid and glycogen. Rats were individually housed in cages equipped with 2 bottles containing water and either a 0.4%, 2%, 4 % or 8 % sucrose solution. The rats had free access to the water and sucrose solution for 6 h on both the day before (Pre) and the day of 2 h treadmill exercise (Ex). Fluid intake was measured. We also measured tissue weight, tissue water and tissue glycogen after 6 h recovery. Compared to Pre, voluntary fluid intake on Ex significantly decreased for 2 % and 4 % solutions, whereas it did not change for 0.4% and 8 %. After 6h of fluid ingestion, the content of tissue water and glycogen was highest for 8 % among the solutions. These results demonstrate that 8 % was effective in rehydration and tissue glycogen recovery after exercise, since its voluntary intake did not decrease after exercise.