Associations Between Occupational Status, Support at Work, and Salivary Cortisol Levels.

OBJECTIVE: The present study investigated associations between occupation, job stress, and salivary cortisol levels after psychological tasks. METHODS: We examined 766 (273 men and 493 women) healthy employed Japanese participants aged 21 to 68 years (mean age = 46.4 years, standard deviation = 8.5) with three types of occupation: manager, teacher, and general worker. The Brief Job Stress Questionnaire was used to evaluate participants' job stress levels, including job demand, job control, support from supervisors, and support from coworkers. Salivary cortisol levels were measured at pre-session, post-stressful tasks, and post-relaxation. All samples were assayed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay test. Natural log transformation was applied before statistical analyses. A multiple regression analysis and a repeated measures analysis of covariance were conducted to test associations between occupation and salivary cortisol levels, adjusting for confounding factors. Statistical analyses were conducted separately for men and women. RESULTS: Among both men and women, general workers had higher cortisol levels than managers throughout the experimental session (men 0.6 µg/dL and 0.4 µg/dL, respectively; women 0.5 µg/dL and 0.4 µg/dL, respectively). Job control was positively associated with cortisol levels measured in all sessions, after adjusting for confounding factors (standardized beta 0.15, 0.21, and 0.18 for pre-session, post-stressful-tasks, and post-relaxation, respectively, all p < 0.05). Men with low support from coworkers had higher cortisol levels than those with high support through the sessions (0.6 µg/dL and 0.4 µg/dL, respectively). CONCLUSION: Socioeconomic disparity according to occupational status was related to cortisol levels in Japanese workers. Support from coworkers may be effective for reducing cortisol secretion in men.

Association between frequency of laughter and oral health among community-dwelling older adults: a population-based cross-sectional study in Japan.

PURPOSE: Oral health has been reported to have an impact on the activities of daily life such as chewing, eating, and laughing, while psychological factors such as depression and loneliness have been reported to affect oral health. Little is known, however, about the association between laughter and oral health in older adults. This study examined the bidirectional association between the frequency of daily laughter and oral health in community-dwelling older Japanese adults. METHODS: Our cross-sectional study employed data from the 2013 Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study's self-reported survey, which included 11,239 male and 12,799 female community-dwelling independent individuals aged 65 years or older. We defined the oral health status by the number of remaining teeth. The association between the self-reported frequency of laughter (almost every day, 1-5 days per week, 1-3 days per month, or almost never) and oral health was examined using logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: The participants with 10 or more teeth were significantly more likely to laugh compared with the edentulous participants, after adjusting for all covariates. Compared with those who almost never laughed, those who laughed 1-5 days per week were significantly less likely to be edentulous. After stratifying by sex, similar results were found only in the men for both analyses. CONCLUSION: There was a significant bidirectional association between frequency of laughter and oral health that was independent of socioeconomic and lifestyle factors among older adults.

Unreliable Information as a Risk Factor for Worse Mental Fatigue among Residents in Fukushima after the Nuclear Power Station Accident.

After the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, there was confusion among the public caused by uncoordinated information about radiation provided by diverse channels. We explored the association between information sources regarding reconstruction progress after the disaster and mental fatigue in Fukushima. We used data from the annual public opinion survey by the Fukushima Prefectural Government on its policies from 2013 to 2015, which contained survey responses from 1,300 community residents randomly selected from the 28 municipalities in the Fukushima Prefecture. The survey contained a question assessing mental fatigue: "How often do you usually feel mentally tired or depressed?" In total, 2,130 participants (758 participants in 2013, 699 participants in 2014, and 673 participants in 2015) were analyzed. The respondents were classified as two categories, "high mental fatigue" and "low mental fatigue," based on their responses to this question. Overall, the proportion of participants with high mental fatigue was 13.2%. There was no association between the year of survey or occupation and high mental fatigue. Cluster analysis was performed to classify information sources. Then, we conducted a cross-sectional analysis of the associations between clusters of information sources and high mental fatigue. We found that unreliable information sources, such as "Internet" and "a combination of TV, radio, and word of mouth," were significantly associated with high mental fatigue, compared with reliable information sources, such as "municipal public relations in addition to major media (newspaper, TV, and radio)." These findings provide important insights into how information sources affect mental fatigue following a disaster.

Reduced number of teeth with and without dental prostheses and low frequency of laughter in older adults: Mediation by poor oral function.

PURPOSE: Laughter is expected to have health-protective effects, but the potential link between tooth loss and laughter remains unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the association between tooth loss and a low frequency of laughter among older adults in Japan, to elucidate whether this association could be mitigated by dental prostheses, and to evaluate the magnitude of the association mediated by poor oral function. METHODS: We used cross-sectional data from 157,708 functionally independent participants aged ≥65 years (46.3% male) from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study. A modified Poisson regression model was applied to examine the association between the number of remaining teeth (≥20/10-19/0-9), dental prostheses use, and infrequent laughter (i.e., laughing never or almost never). Causal mediation analysis was performed to assess whether the association was mediated by difficulties in eating hard foods, choking, or dry mouth. RESULTS: Among the participants, 9,129 reported infrequent laughter. Participants with ≤9 and 10-19 teeth who did not use dental prostheses had a 1.29 and 1.14 times higher likelihood of infrequent laughter than those with ≥20 teeth, respectively. Furthermore, difficulty eating hard foods, choking, and dry mouth mediated 22.8%, 0.4%, and 4.3% of the association between fewer remaining teeth and infrequent laughter, respectively. Meanwhile, we did not find evidence for the differences in infrequent laughter between participants with ≤19 teeth using dental prostheses and those with ≥20 teeth. CONCLUSIONS: Tooth loss among individuals without dental prostheses was associated with infrequent laughter, and this association was mediated by poor oral function.

Triple primary malignancies of surface osteosarcoma of jaw, myelodysplastic syndrome and colorectal cancer as a second primary cancer detected by PET2-[18F]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography: A case report.

Second primary malignancy (SPM) is a severe issue for cancer survivors, particularly for osteosarcoma (OS) survivors. To date, the associations between subsequent SPM and OS have been well reported. Hematogenic and solid malignancies tend to occur following OS treatment. Reportedly, 2-[18F]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) is mainly used in OS patients for initial cancer staging, to evaluate the response of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and when recurrence or metastasis is clinically suspected. The present case report describes a 70-year-old man diagnosed with three primary malignancies: jaw OS, myelodysplastic syndrome and colorectal adenocarcinoma. To the best of our knowledge, this combination of malignancies has not been reported previously. Until now, there is no specific protocol of postoperative FDG-PET for OS patients. Few studies have described OS follow-up methods; therefore, there is no consensus on proper follow-up methods. In the present case report, the colorectal early-stage SPM was observed, without any symptoms, by FDG-PET/computed tomography. To avoid overlooking solid SPMs, it is suggested that FDG-PET should be performed in the long-term follow-up of OS patients.