Exploratory study of cold hypersensitivity in Japanese women: genetic associations and somatic symptom burden.

Temperature perception is essential for humans to discern the environment and maintain homeostasis. However, some individuals experience cold hypersensitivity, characterized by a subjective feeling of coldness despite ambient environmental temperatures being normal, the underlying mechanisms of which are unknown. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between subjective cold symptoms and somatic burden or single nucleotide polymorphisms to understand the causes of cold hypersensitivity. We conducted an online questionnaire survey [comprising 30 questions, including past medical history, subjective symptoms of cold hypersensitivity, and the Somatic Symptom Scale-8 (SSS-8)]. Respondents were 1200 Japanese adult female volunteers (age: 20-59 years), recruited between April 21 and May 25, 2022, who were customers of MYCODE, a personal genome service in Japan. Among the 1111 participants, 599 (54%) reported cold hypersensitivity. Higher cold hypersensitivity severity was positively associated with the SSS-8 scores. Additionally, a genome-wide association study for cold hypersensitivity was conducted using array-based genomic data obtained from genetic testing. We identified 11 lead variants showing suggestive associations (P < 1 × 10-5) with cold hypersensitivity, some of which showed a reasonable change in expression in specific tissues in the Genotype-Tissue Expression database. The study findings shed light on the underlying causes of cold hypersensitivity.

Prevalence of colonoscopy in Japan using a large-scale health claims data compared to esophagogastroduodenoscopy.

OBJECTIVE: Prevalence of colonoscopy (CS) is an important countermeasure against colorectal cancer (CRC). In this study, we used large-scale data for a comparison of CS with esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) in Japan. METHODS: This was a retrospective descriptive study. Commercially anonymized patient data were collected from various health insurance societies (JMDC, Inc. Tokyo, Japan) generated from the insurance registry, receipts (inpatient, outpatient, and prescription), and health checkup data. The data also included healthy subjects who had never been examined in a hospital. The data of 2,760,048 persons who were 50-75 years old during January 2012-December 2019 were extracted from the original data source. The annual rate, the prevalence rate (frequency of those undergoing at least one endoscopy during the period), and the percentage of repeaters (undergoing endoscopy at least twice during the period) of CS were calculated and compared to those of EGD. RESULTS: The annual rates in 2012/2015/2019 were 3.4%/4.5%/5.3% for CS, respectively, and increased gradually from 2012 to 2019. Those rates were 7.0%/7.9%/7.4% for EGD, respectively, and did not increase. The prevalence rates of CS and EGD were 25.3% and 36.2%, respectively, among the 137,246 participants over 8 years. The prevalence rates of individuals in their 50 s/60 s/70 s were 23.0%/25.9%/31.4% for CS and 33.0%/37.6%/40.7% for EGD, respectively. The proportions of males/females were 27.9%/20.7% for CS, and 36.4%/35.8% for EGD, respectively. The repeat rates of CS and EGD were 40.3% and 44.8%, respectively, over 8 years. CONCLUSIONS: Using large-scale data, we determined the status of CS and EGD in Japan.

Prediction Model for Deficiency-Excess Patterns, Including Medium Pattern / 日本東洋医学雑誌

We have previously reported on a predictive model for deficiency-excess pattern diagnosis that was unable to predict the medium pattern. In this study, we aimed to develop predictive models for deficiency, medium,and excess pattern diagnosis, and to confirm whether cutoff values for diagnosis differed between the clinics. We collected data from patients' first visit to one of six Kampo clinics in Japan from January 2012 to February 2015. Exclusion criteria included unwillingness to participate in the study, missing data, duplicate data, under 20 years old, 20 or less subjective symptoms, and irrelevant patterns. In total, 1,068 participants were included. Participants were surveyed using a 153-item questionnaire. We constructed a predictive model for deficiency, medium, and excess pattern diagnosis using a random forest algorithm from training data, and extracted the most important items. We calculated predictive values for each participant by applying their data to the predictive model, and created receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves with excess-medium and medium-deficiency patterns. Furthermore, we calculated the cutoff value for these patterns in each clinic using ROC curves, and compared them. Body mass index and blood pressure were the most important items. In all clinics, the cutoff values for diagnosis of excess-medium and medium-deficiency patterns was > 0.5 and < 0.5, respectively. We created a predictive model for deficiency, medium, and excess pattern diagnosis from the data of six Kampo clinics in Japan. The cutoff values for these patterns fell within a narrow range in the six clinics.