Relationships among body mass index, activities of daily living and zinc nutritional status in disabled elderly patients in nursing facilities.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the zinc nutritional status and the factors associated with serum zinc concentration in the elderly patients in two nursing facilities: body mass index (BMI), the level of care, the grade of bedriddenness, and the grade of cognitive function. The estimations of the hematological constituents, physical index, and dietary survey were made based on the examination carried out of the 26 disabled elderly patients (male 6, female 20, mean age 90±6 y). The results obtained from this study can be summarized as follows: 1) The low activities of daily living (ADL) group showed a low level of serum zinc concentration, although the uptake rate of zinc by subjects was shown to be high when compared to the Dietary Reference Intakes 2010.

Characterization of the calcification process modeled in rat embryonic calvarial culture.

An organ culture system to model the physiological calcification process was designed using rat embryonic calvaria as a device for analyzing its mechanism. Standardized calvarial explants were dissected from rat embryos aged 18 and 20 days (E18 and E20) and cultured for 1, 3 and 5 days. The calcium content of the cultured explants was quantified by atomic absorption spectrophotometry.

Beneficial effect of 3% milled-rice on blood glucose level and serum lipid concentrations in spontaneously non-insulin-dependent diabetic rats.

Three percent milled-rice was evaluated for beneficial effect on blood glucose level and serum lipid concentrations in an experiment with Otsuka Long-Evans Tokushima Fatty (OLETF) rats, used as model animals for spontaneously non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. The same experiment was carried out using Long-Evans Tokushima Otsuka (LETO) rats, the control of the OLETF rats. The results obtained from the rats given a diet containing 3% milled-rice (3% MRD) ad libitum were compared with those from rats given polished rice.

The application of a handheld personal digital assistant with camera and mobile phone card (Wellnavi) to the general population in a dietary survey.

This study was carried out to examine first, the validity of a new dietary assessment method, a handheld personal digital assistant with camera and mobile phone card (Wellnavi), in comparison with a weighed diet record as a reference method and second, the relation between obesity and underreporting in the Wellnavi method in 27 men and 48 women volunteers aged 30-67 y from the general population. On the validity, there were significant correlations (0.32-0.