Association between Insomnia Symptoms and Hemoglobin A1c Level in Japanese Men

Background: The evidence for an association between insomnia symptoms and blood hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level has been limited and inconclusive. The aim of this study was to assess whether each symptom of initial, middle, and terminal insomnia influences HbA 1c level in Japanese men. Methods: This cross-sectional study examined 1,022 male workers aged 22–69 years with no history of diabetes at a Japanese company’s annual health check-up in April 2010. High HbA1c was defined as a blood level of HbA1c $6.0%. Three types of insomnia symptoms (i.e., difficulty in initiating sleep, difficulty in maintaining sleep, and early morning awakening) from the previous month were assessed by 3 responses (i.e., lasting more than 2 weeks, sometimes, and seldom or never [reference group]). Results: The overall prevalence of high HbA1c was 5.2%. High HbA1c was positively and linearly associated with both difficulty in maintaining sleep (P for trend =.002) and early morning awakening (P for trend =.007). More specifically, after adjusting for potential confounding factors, high HbA1c was significantly associated with difficulty in maintaining sleep lasting more than 2 weeks (adjusted odds ratio, 6.79 [95 % confidence interval, 1.86–24.85]) or sometimes (2.33 [1.19–4.55]). High HbA1c was also significantly associated with early morning awakening lasting more than 2 weeks (3.96 [1.24–12.59]). Conclusion: Insomnia symptoms, particularly difficulty in maintaining sleep and early morning awakening, were found t

How insects survive the cold: molecular mechanisms - a review

Insects vary considerably in their ability to survive low temperatures. The tractability of these organisms to experimentation has lead to considerable physiology-based work investigating both the variability between species and the actual mechanisms themselves. This has highlighted a range of strategies including freeze tolerance, freeze avoidance, protective dehydration and rapid cold hardening, which are often associated with the production of specific chemicals such as antifreezes and polyol cryoprotectants. But we are still far from identifying the critical elements behind over-wintering success and how some species can regularly survive temperatures below -20°C. Molecular biology is the most recent tool to be added to the insect physiologist’s armoury. With the public availability of the genome sequence of model insects such as Drosophila and the production of custom-made molecular resources, such as EST libraries and microarrays, we are now in a position to start dissecting the molecular mechanisms behind some of these well-characterised physiological responses. This review aims to provide a state of the art snapshot of the molecular work currently being conducted into insect cold tolerance and the very interesting preliminary results from such studies, which provide great promise for the future

Role of Methoprene-Tolerant (Met) in Adult Morphogenesis and in Adult Ecdysis of <i>Blattella germanica</i>

<div><p>Juvenile Hormone (JH) represses metamorphosis of young instars in insects. One of the main players in hormonal signalling is Methoprene-tolerant (Met), which plays the role of JH receptor. Using the Polyneopteran insect <i>Blattella germanica</i> as the model and RNAi for transcript depletion, we have confirmed that Met transduces the antimetamorphic signal of JH in young nymphs and plays a role in the last nymphal instar moult in this species. Previously, the function of Met as the JH receptor had been demonstrated in the Eumetabola clade, with experiments in Holometabola (in the beetle <i>Tribolium castaneum</i>) and in their sister group Paraneoptera (in the bug <i>Pyrrhocoris apterus</i>). Our result shows that the function of Met as JH receptor is also conserved in the more basal Polyneoptera. The function of Met as JH transducer might thus predate the evolutionary innovation of metamorphosis. Moreover, expression of Met was also found in last nymphal instar of <i>B. germanica</i>, when JH is absent. Depletion of Met in this stage provoked deficiencies in wing growth and ecdysis problems in the imaginal moult. Down-regulation of the ecdysone-inducible gene E75A and Insulin-Like-Peptide 1 in these Met-depleted specimens suggest that Met is involved in the ecdysone and insulin signalling pathways in last nymphal instar, when JH is virtually absent.</p></div

Regulating ‘respect’ for the embryo: social mindscapes and human embryonic stem cell research in Japan

This article explores the relationship between the science community and the bioethical regulation of human embryonic stem cell research (hESR) in the laboratory and in daily life in Japan. It develops a perspective that takes into account the diversity of views among principle investigators (PIs) and scientists working in the laboratory. Deploying Eviatar Zerubavel’s notion of social mindscapes and the notion of mindsets, I elucidate the relationships between the personal and the professional, scientists and the public. Introducing the concept of mindset switching, I argue that scientists’ views of embryonic substances cannot be understood adequately in terms of the rhetoric of boundary making alone. The use of cognitive notions of social mindscape applied to situations in the life of scientists has far-reaching consequences for both the implementation of research regulation involving respect for the embryo and for the public discussion on the use of embryonic substances. The article is based on interviews with over thirty scientists working with embryos and stem cells during fieldwork visits in eleven science institutes in Japan