Alcoholic Liver Disease

Relationship between ethanol drinking and organs injury was reviewed and special emphasis was put on alcoholic liver disease. Consumption of alcoholic beverage expressed as ethanol per capita of adult in Japan increased 2.1 times in these 25 years and it is still increasing. Although the incidence of alcoholic liver disease in Japan also increased greatly during the above period, it seems likely that plateau level is coming because of genetically defined, unique type of alcohol metabolism in Japanese. Sex differences in susceptibility to alcohol were discussed. Among the six types of alcoholic liver disease, alcoholic liver fibrosis is relatively frequent in Japan. Mechanism of liver injury has been studied extensively. Alcohol itself is toxic but other factors such as dietary fat are also important. Biochemical and immunological markers of drinking were presented. As for the treatment, most patients especially in early stages of the disease well respond to alcohol withdrawal, but therapy of alcohol dependence in the background of the disease is very difficult requiring cooperative works of different kinds of specialists

The results of liver function test on workers handling ethanol and isopropanol solvents

Liver function tests such as GOT, GPT, γ-GTP and ornithine carbamyl transferase (OCT) were done on workers handling alcoholic solvents. One was a group of molders working in a foundry where they sprayed ethanol solvent on the surface of a sandbox and burnt it. Another was a group of painters at an iron and steel works and they sprayed paint with isopropanol solvent on iron and steel plates. No statistical differences in the results of tests between the solvent workers and control groups were seen. High correlations were found between GOT/γ-GTP and OCT/γ-GTP. OCT of 4 workers who had drunk alcohol on the day before test showed a statisically high value compared to workers who had not drunk alcohol

Synthesis of carbon nanotubes by microwave heating: Influence of diameter of catalytic Ni nanoparticles on diameter of CNTs

We rapidly synthesized multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) by calcination of granulated polystyrene with nickel nanoparticles having different average diameter (D-Ni = 10, 20, 50 or 90 nm) under nitrogen gas at a certain temperature and time (700 degrees C, 15 min or 800 degrees C, 10 min), using a domestic microwave oven in order to systematically investigate the influence of the diameter of nickel nanoparticles on the diameter of MWCNTs. The MWCNTs synthesized here were characterized by a transmission electron microscope, a Raman spectrophotometer and a wide angle X-ray diffractometer. We found that for the calcination condition of (800 degrees C, 10 min), a relationship between the outer diameter of the resulted carbon nanotubes (D-CNT) and the diameter of catalytic nickel nanoparticles (D-Ni) can be described as a linear function, D-CNT = 1.01D(Ni) + 14.79 nm with the correlation coefficient R = 0.99, and that for the calcination condition of 700 degrees C, 15 min, D-CNT = 1.12D(Ni) + 7.80 nm with R = 0.95. Thus, we revealed that when the diameter of the catalytic nickel nanoparticles (D-Ni) increases by 1 nm, the outer diameter of the obtained MWCNTs (D-CNT) increases by about 1 nm.ArticleJOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY A. 2(8):2773-2780 (2014)journal articl

Salivary oxytocin concentrations in seven boys with autism spectrum disorder received massage from their mothers: A pilot study

Seven male children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), aged 8-12 years, attending special education classrooms for ASD and disabled children, were assigned to receive touch therapy. Their mothers were instructed to provide gentle touch in the massage style of the International Liddle Kidz Association. The mothers gave massages to their child for 20 min every day over a period of 3 months, followed by no massage for 4 months. To assess the biological effects of such touch therapy, saliva was collected before and 20 min after a single session of massage for 20 min from the children and mothers every 3 weeks during the massage period and every 4 weeks during the non-massage period, when they visited a community meeting room. Salivary oxytocin levels were measured using an enzyme immunoassay kit. During the period of massage therapy, the children and mothers exhibited higher oxytocin concentrations compared to those during the non-massage period. The changes in oxytocin levels before and after a single massage session were not significantly changed in children and mothers. The results suggested that the ASD children (massage receivers) and their mothers (massage givers) show touch therapy-dependent changes in salivary oxytocin concentrations. © 2015 Tsuji, Yuhi, Furuhara, Ohta, Shimizu and Higashida

The right temporoparietal junction during a cooperation dilemma: An rTMS study

Cooperation enhances interpersonal communication and nurtures society. However, efforts to socially cooperate may often evoke conflict. Individuals may selfishly pursue a greater reward or success by exploiting the efforts of other individuals or taking unnecessary risk to oneself. Such a cooperation dilemma is highly prevalent in real life; thus, it has been studied in various disciplines. Although published functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have shown the involvement of the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) in resolving a dilemma through cooperation, a causal relationship between the two has rarely been explored. Hence, we investigated this issue by combining repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation with a priority game task (modified snowdrift game). In this game task, participants and opponent players jointly faced a problem whereby their collaboration was anticipated to defuse the situation. This conflicted with a choice in the participant's self-interest that was more rewarding but risky. We further included conditions with and without explicit social cues using figures describing elderly/pregnant passengers in the game opponent's car, and measured participants' prosocial traits to examine any cue-induced effect as well as the personality-cooperation relationship, respectively. The cooperation ratio was not statistically different in both the no-cue and with-cue conditions between the sham stimulation and inhibitory continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS). However, after cTBS, in the no-cue condition, the strength of the association between cooperation ratio and empathy traits decreased significantly. These results add to our knowledge about the right TPJ's role in social cognition, which may be extraordinarily complex. This topic is deserving of further examination

Cytology of malignant endocrine tumor of the pancreas : A case report

We report here a case of malignant endocrine tumor of the pancreas with lymph node metastasis in a 67-year-old woman. The cytologic preparations ex-hibited small cells having uniform round eccentrically located nuclei and large cells showing irregular-shaped nuclei with coarse chromatin and pleomorphism. The histologic, immunohistochemical and ultrastructural findings were characte-ristic of pancreatic endocrine tumor, regardless of immunophenotypic hetero-geneity. The heterogeneity observed in cytologic specimens may be important in predicting the malignant potential of this tumor group

Full-Length Sequence of Mouse Acupuncture-Induced 1-L (Aig1l) Gene Including Its Transcriptional Start Site

We have been investigating the molecular efficacy of electroacupuncture (EA), which is one type of acupuncture therapy. In our previous molecular biological study of acupuncture, we found an EA-induced gene, named acupuncture-induced 1-L (Aig1l), in mouse skeletal muscle. The aims of this study consisted of identification of the full-length cDNA sequence of Aig1l including the transcriptional start site, determination of the tissue distribution of Aig1l and analysis of the effect of EA on Aig1l gene expression. We determined the complete cDNA sequence including the transcriptional start site via cDNA cloning with the cap site hunting method. We then analyzed the tissue distribution of Aig1l by means of northern blot analysis and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. We used the semiquantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction to examine the effect of EA on Aig1l gene expression. Our results showed that the complete cDNA sequence of Aig1l was 6073 bp long, and the putative protein consisted of 962 amino acids. All seven tissues that we analyzed expressed the Aig1l gene. In skeletal muscle, EA induced expression of the Aig1l gene, with high expression observed after 3 hours of EA. Our findings thus suggest that the Aig1l gene may play a key role in the molecular mechanisms of EA efficacy

Dietary fiber showed no preventive effect against colon and rectal cancers in Japanese with low fat intake: an analysis from the results of nutrition surveys from 23 Japanese prefectures

BACKGROUND: Since Fuchs' report in 1999, the reported protective effect of dietary fiber from colorectal carcinogenesis has led many researchers to question its real benefit. The aim of this study is to evaluate the association between diet, especially dietary fiber and fat and colorectal cancer in Japan. METHODS: A multiple regression analysis (using the stepwise variable selection method) was performed using the standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) of colon and rectal cancer in 23 Japanese prefectures as objective variables and dietary fiber, nutrients and food groups as explanatory variables. RESULTS: As for colon cancer, the standardized partial correlation coefficients were positively significant for fat (1,13, P = 0.000), seaweeds (0.41, P = 0.026) and beans (0.45, P = 0.017) and were negatively significant for vitamin A (-0.63, P = 0.003), vitamin C (-0.42, P = 0.019) and yellow-green vegetables (-0.37, P = 0.046). For rectal cancer, the standardized partial correlation coefficient in fat (0.60, P = 0.002) was positively significant. Dietary fiber was not found to have a significant relationship with either colon or rectal cancers. CONCLUSIONS: This study failed to show any protective effect of dietary fiber in subjects with a low fat intake (Japanese) in this analysis, which supports Fuchs' findings in subjects with a high fat intake (US Americans)

Leptospirosis in Squirrels Imported from United States to Japan

We diagnosed leptospirosis in 2 patients exposed to southern flying squirrels imported from the United States to Japan. Patients worked with exotic animals in their company. Leptospira isolates from 1 patient and 5 of 10 squirrels at the company were genetically and serologically identical and were identified as Leptospira kirschneri