Daily steps and healthcare costs in Japanese communities.

Physical inactivity is a pandemic that requires intensive, usually costly efforts for risk reduction of related chronic diseases. Nevertheless, it is challenging to determine the effectiveness of physical activity in healthcare cost reduction based on existing literature. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the impact of physical activity (daily steps) on healthcare costs utilising the data retrieved from a health promotion project (the e-wellness Project, held in three municipalities in Japan). Evaluating the effects of daily steps, measured by pedometers, on healthcare costs by a quasi-experimental approach among participants aged 40-75 years (about 4000 person-years of observation, between 2009 and 2013), we found that a one-step-increase in the annual average daily step reduced outpatient healthcare costs by 16.26 JPY (≒ 0.11 GBD) in the short run. Based on the assumption of a dynamic relationship between the health statuses in multiple years, the long-run effects of daily steps on healthcare costs were estimated at 28.24 JPY (≒ 0.20 GBD). We determined the health benefits of walking in a sample of middle-aged and older Japanese adults by our findings that an increase in step counts reduced healthcare costs.

Symmetric undivided diplopagus with cardiac malformation in a Japanese wild boar (Sus scrofa leucomystax).

A captured Japanese wild boar (Sus scrofa leucomystax) fetus was dicephalic. The fetus had two heads, but one body from the cranial neck region. Computed tomography imaging revealed that the two crania merged at the occipital bone, and the vertebral bodies between the atlas and the seventh thoracic vertebra were deformed. The fetus was found to have two tongues and laryngopharynges, but its esophagus and trachea were not duplicated. Each head contained a cerebrum and cerebellum, but the brains merged at the obex of the medulla oblongata, and the cervical spinal cord had duplicated ventral clefts. The heart was composed of three atria and four ventricles. This is the first report of a dicephalus with cardiac malformation in a wild boar.