Long-term exposure to elevated blood pressure and mortality from cardiovascular disease in a Japanese population: the Ibaraki Prefectural Health Study.

High blood pressure (BP) has been well established as a leading risk factor for both cardiovascular disease and mortality in general. However, the effect of long-term exposure to elevated BP on mortality risks in Asian populations remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of time-averaged BP levels over 5 years on subsequent cardiovascular disease mortalities in a Japanese population.

Relationship between obesity and incident diabetes in middle-aged and older Japanese adults: the Ibaraki Prefectural Health Study.

Objective: To investigate the age-specific relationship between body mass index (BMI) and risk of diabetes in a Japanese general population.

Participants And Methods: A cohort of Japanese men (N=19,926) and women (N=41,489) (aged 40-79 years) who under went community-based health checkups in 1993 and were free of diabetes was followed up by annual examinations with measurement of blood glucose concentrations until the end of 2006. Incident diabetes mellitus was defined as a blood glucose concentration of 126 mg/dL or greater under fasting conditions, 200 mg/dL or greater under nonfasting conditions, or diabetic medication use at baseline.

Associations between metabolic syndrome and mortality from cardiovascular disease in Japanese general population, findings on overweight and non-overweight individuals. Ibaraki Prefectural Health Study.

Background: The impact of being overweight, as a component of the metabolic syndrome (MetS), for cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality was investigated and compared with the predictive value of MetS by 2 different definitions.

Methods And Results: A 12-year prospective study of 30,774 Japanese men and 60,383 women aged 40-79 years was conducted. The multivariate hazard ratio (HR; 95% confidence interval) of total CVD mortality for overweight subjects with >or=2 additional risk factors with reference to subjects with 0 of 4 MetS components was 1.