Adult height has directionally opposing relationships with risk of death from several different major causes of chronic diseases.

Study objective-To evaluate the association of long working hours with the risk for hypertension. Design-A five year prospective cohort study. Setting-Work site in Osaka, Japan. Participants-941 hypertension free Japanese male white collar workers aged 35-54 years were prospectively examined by serial annual health examinations. Men in whom borderline hypertension and hypertension were found during repeated surveys were defined as incidental cases of borderline hypertension and hypertension. Conclusions-These results indicate that long working hours are negatively associated with the risk for hypertension in Japanese male white collar workers. (J Epidemiol Community Health 2001;55:316-322) With regard to the eVect of working hours on health, long working hours have been shown to be related to various disorders and diseases such as chronic fatigue, 1 2 musculoskeletal complaints, 3 mental stress or health, 4-6 dissatisfaction with work, 7 depression, 8 and coronary heart disease. 9 10 In particular, "Karoshi", or sudden unexplained death in relatively young workers, has received considerable attention as a social problem in Japan.11 It is widely thought that strenuous work for long hours, which is so much a part of the modern Japanese culture, is a major contributory factor for Karoshi resulting from hypertensive or arteriosclerotic disease.As for the association between long working hours and blood pressure, the influence of long working hours on blood pressure is related to sympathetic nerve activity and concentrations of counterregulatory hormones that accompanies psychological stress 12 13 and physical activity.14 As overtime work is very often accompanied by such stress and physical activity, it is reasonable to expect an association between long working hours and the risk for hypertension. However, there is no convincing evidence to support the view that long working hours contribute to long term blood pressure and predisposition to hypertension. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a longitudinal study to clarify the relation between long working hours and the risk for hypertension.In this report on a longitudinal population study based on serial annual health examinations at the workplace, we have tried to prospectively examine the association between long working hours and the risk for hypertension in hypertension free Japanese male white collar workers. Methods STUDY COHORTOur study is an ongoing cohort investigation designed to clarify risk factors for major diseases, including hypertension, dyslipidaemia, and diabetes among Japanese male white collar workers, not working in a shift system at T Corporation, one of the biggest building contractors in Osaka, Japan. The Industrial Safety and Health Law in Japan requires the employer to conduct annual health examinations of all employees; the employee data, which are anonymised, are available for research with the approval of the employer. To evaluate the association of long working hours with the risk for hypertension, a surveillance of the in...

BackgroundColorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide, and in Japan, it is estimated that about 10% of men and 8% of women will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer during their lifetime.MethodsWe focused on 5864 participants (3699 men and 2165 women) who had colorectal cancer and were registered with BioBank Japan (BBJ) between April 2003 and March 2008. Characteristics of colon and rectal cancer patients were calculated separately. Among the enrolled patients registered in BBJ within 90 days after diagnosis, we also calculated the 5-year cumulative and relative survival rates, and estimated the effect of lifestyle factors on all-cause mortality.ResultsOur participants included younger men than those in the Patient Survey and the Cancer Registry Japan. In more than 95% of cases the histological type was adenocarcinoma both in colon and rectal cancer. Rectal cancer patients tended to eat more meat and less green leafy vegetables compared with colon cancer patients. The 5-year cumulative survival rate was 73.0% (95% CI; 70.1%–75.7%) and the 5-year relative survival rate was 80.6% (77.4%–83.6%), respectively, for colon cancer. For rectal cancer, the rates were 73.3% (69.1%–77.0%) and 80.9% (76.3%–85.0%), in the same order. Lifestyle factors such as consuming less green leafy vegetables, being underweight, smoking, not consuming alcoholic beverages and being physically inactive were found to be related to poor survival.ConclusionsWe described lifestyle characteristics of colorectal cancer patients in BBJ and examined the impacts on subsequent all-cause mortality.

Short page-heading: Speed of eating and incidence of diabetes Text, 2,551 words, Abstract 249 words; number of References, 33; number of Tables, 3. Conflict-of-interest disclosure: None. AbstractObjective: This cohort study investigated the association between eating speed and the incidence of type 2 diabetes in middle-aged Japanese men. Materials/Methods: Participants were 2,050 male employees of a metal products factory in Japan. We measured self-reported categorical eating speed. The incidence of diabetes was determined in annual medical examinations over a 7-year period. The association between eating speed and the incidence of diabetes adjusted for multiple variables (age, family history of diabetes, smoking, alcohol drinking, habitual exercise, and presence of hypertension and hyperlipidemia) was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards models. Results:The prevalence of obesity (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m 2 ) across the categories of eating speed (slow, medium, and fast) was 14.6, 23.3, and 34.8%, respectively, and a faster eating speed was associated with a higher prevalence of obesity. During the study, 177 participants developed diabetes. Crude incidence rates (/1,000 person-years) across the three categories of eating speed were 9.9, 15.6, and 17.3, respectively. Multivariate-adjusted hazard ratios (95% CI) across the categories were 1.00 (reference), 1.68 (0.93-3.02), and 1.97 (1.10-3.55), respectively, and eating speed was associated with the risk of diabetes (p for trend = 0.030).After further adjustment for BMI, a significant association was not observed. Conclusions:Eating speed was associated with the incidence of diabetes. Since these associations were not significant after adjusting for BMI, eating speed may act via its effect on body weight. Eating speed is a controllable risk factor, and eating slowly could be an acceptable lifestyle intervention for the prevention of diabetes mellitus.

Objective-To investigate the association between duration of overtime and the development of impaired fasting glucose (IFG) or type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). Methods-A cohort of 1266 Japanese male oYce workers aged 35-59 years and free of IFG (fasting plasma glucose concentration 6.1-6.9 mmol/l), type 2 DM (fasting plasma glucose concentration of 7.0 mmol/l or more or taking hypoglycaemic medication), history of diabetes, or medication for hypertension were re-examined over 5 successive years after their initial examinations in 1994. Results-138 men developed IFG or type 2 DM during the 5736 person-years of follow up. After controlling for potential predictors of diabetes, the relative risks of IFG or type 2 DM, compared with those who worked <8.0 hours a day, were 0.82 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.54 to 1.26), 0.69 (95% CI 0.38 to 1.26), 0.63 (95% CI: 0.37 to 1.09), and 0.50 (95% CI: 0.25 to 0.98) for those who worked 8.0-8.9, 9.0-9.9, 10.0-10.9, and of 11.0 hours or more a day, respectively (p for trend=0.020). 87 and 54 men developed IFG and type 2 DM during the 5817 and 5937 person-years of follow up, respectively. The multivariate adjusted relative risks of IFG tended to decrease with an increase in hours of overtime work a day, but did not reach significance (p for trend=0.202). On the other hand, the multivariate adjusted relative risks of type 2 DM significantly decreased with an increase in hours of overtime work a day (p for trend=0.014). Conclusion-Longer overtime is a negative risk factor for the development of IFG or type 2 DM in Japanese male oYce workers. (Occup Environ Med 2001;58:569-574)