Dietary Intake of Green Nut Oil or DHA Ameliorates DHA Distribution in the Brain of a Mouse Model of Dementia Accompanied by Memory Recovery.

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid, has significant healthbenefits. Previous studies reported decreased levels of DHA and DHA-containing phosphatidylcholines inthe brain of animals suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the most common type of dementia; furthermore,DHA supplementation has been found to improve brain DHA levels and memory efficiency in dementia. Oilextracted from the seeds of Plukenetia volubilis (green nut oil; GNO) is also expected to have DHA like effectsas it contains approximately 50% α-linolenic acid, a precursor of DHA. Despite this, changes in the spatialdistribution of DHA in the brain of animals with dementia following GNO or DHA supplementation remainunexplored. In this study, desorption electrospray ionization imaging mass spectrometry (DESI-IMS) wasapplied to observe the effects of GNO or DHA supplementation upon the distribution of DHA in the brain ofmale senescence-accelerated mouse-prone 8 (SAMP8) mice, a mouse model of dementia. DESI-IMS revealedthat brain DHA distribution increased 1.85-fold and 3.67-fold in GNO-fed and DHA-fed SAMP8 mice,respectively, compared to corn oil-fed SAMP8 mice. Memory efficiency in SAMP8 mice was also improvedby GNO or DHA supplementation. In summary, this study suggests the possibility of GNO or DHAsupplementation for the prevention of dementia.

[Characteristics of Microbial Colony Counts on Agar Plates for Food and Microbial Culture Samples].

Microbial colony counts of concern of food products are one of the most important items in microbiological examinations. The distributions of colony counts per agar plate of food samples are considered to be reflected with microbial cell distributions in food homogenates. However, (i) the probabilistic distributions of the colony counts per agar plate at the dilution of counting and (ii) the relationship between the colony counts per plate and the number of agar plates for food samples have not been intensively studied so far. In this study, therefore, these two points were studied with raw food samples of raw minced beef and chicken and raw milk and microbial culture samples of Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Among four major probabilistic distributions, it was found that aerobic plate counts per plate of the foods were well described with negative binomial, Poisson, and normal distributions and that the colony counts per plate of microbial cultures were described well with binomial, Poisson, and normal distributions. The effect of the number of agar plates on the estimation of the mean of colony counts per plate of a sample was then studied with the data randomly resampled from the experimental data. The resampled data showed that with more number of plates the mean of counts fluctuated less and the coefficients of variation of colony counts per plate decreased further, which were coincident to the estimated by the central limit theory. Our study would provide useful information on the characteristics of colony counts per plate of food samples which are routinely examined.

Safety concerns with human papilloma virus immunization in Japan: Analysis and evaluation of Nagoya City's surveillance data for adverse events.

AIM: To assess the safety of human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines by using data from the "Nagoya City Cervical Cancer Immunization Program Survey". METHODS: Unadjusted odds ratios (OR) were calculated between HPV-vaccinated cases and un-vaccinated controls. Age-stratified analyses were performed to evaluate the interaction between age and events. Adjusted ORs were also estimated with multiple logistic regression models. RESULTS: In the 15-16-year-old group, the unadjusted ORs were significantly higher for symptoms of memory impairment, dyscalculia, and involuntary movement. The age-adjusted multivariate analyses demonstrated that the vaccinated cases were less likely than the unvaccinated controls to have experienced symptoms in almost all symptoms, except for two symptoms such as involuntary movement and weakness. However, study period-adjusted multivariate analyses demonstrated that the vaccinated cases were significantly more likely than un-vaccinated controls to have experienced symptoms of memory impairment and involuntary movement. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our analysis using data from the Nagoya City surveillance survey, a possible association between HPV vaccination and distinct symptoms such as cognitive impairment or movement disorders exists. A consistent causal relationship between HPV vaccination and these symptoms remains uncertain. However, given the seriousness of symptoms, we believe that a more comprehensive and large-scale study is essential to confirm the safety of HPV vaccination.

Analysis of impact of geographic characteristics on suicide rate and visualization of result with Geographic Information System.

AIM: The aim of our study was to understand the geographic characteristics of Japanese communities and the impact of these characteristics on suicide rates. METHODS: We calculated the standardized mortality ratio from suicide statistics of 3318 municipalities from 1972 to 2002. Correlation analysis, multi-regression analysis and generalized additive model were used to find the relation between topographic and climatic variables and suicide rate. We visualized the relation between geographic characteristics and suicide rate on the map of Wakayama Prefecture, using the Geographic Information System. RESULTS: Our study showed that the geographic characteristics of each community are related with its suicide rate. The strongest factor among the geographic characteristics to increase the suicide rate was the slope of the habitable land. CONCLUSIONS: It is necessary to take the characteristics of each community into consideration when we work out measures of suicide prevention. Visualization of the findings on the local map should be helpful to promote understanding of problems and to share the information among various parties in charge of suicide prevention.