Maternal and placental risk factors for light-for-gestational-age births.

Aim: We conducted a cross-sectional study to investigate risk factors for births of light-for-gestational-age (LGA) infants.

Methods: A survey was conducted at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Sapporo Medical University Hospital in Sapporo, Japan from 2013 to 2014. LGA and appropriate for gestational age (AGA) are defined as having a birthweight below the 10th percentile and between the 10th percentile and 90th percentile for gestational age at birth in the population standard of gestational age, sex, and parity, respectively.

Associations of Serum Isoflavone, Adiponectin and Insulin Levels with Risk for Epithelial Ovarian Cancer: Results of a Case-control Study.

Background: The aim of this study was to examine the association of serum isoflavones, adiponectin, and insulin levels with ovarian cancer risk.

Materials And Methods: We gathered cases with histologically confirmed epithelial ovarian cancer at Sapporo Medical University Hospital from October 2010 to September 2012. Potential controls were recruited from female inpatients without any history of cancer or diabetes mellitus in different wards of the same hospital over the same period of time.

Trials of vaccines for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: Is there any hope of an improved prognosis?

Pancreatic tumors are chemoresistant and malignant, and there are very few therapeutic options for pancreatic cancer, as the disease is normally diagnosed at an advanced stage. Although attempts have been made to develop vaccine therapies for pancreatic cancer for a couple of decades, none of the resultant protocols or regimens have succeeded in improving the clinical outcomes of patients. We herein review vaccines tested within the past few years, including peptide, biological and multiple vaccines, and describe the three sets of criteria used to evaluate the therapeutic activity of vaccines in solid tumors.

Relation of serum adiponectin levels and obesity with breast cancer: a Japanese case-control study.

Background: It is known that obesity is one of the risk factors for breast cancer although the association may differ between ethnic groups and with the menopausal status. Recently obesity-related risk factors including serum adiponectin and insulin levels have been analyzed together with BMI in association with breast cancer risk.

Materials And Methods: We measured serum high molecular weight (HMW) adiponectin and insulin levels in a hospital based case-control study, including 66 sets of Japanese female breast cancer cases and age and menopausal status matched controls.

Relationship of serum isoflavone, insulin and adiponectin levels with breast cancer risk.

Background: Obesity is one of the well-known risk factors of breast cancer. Accumulating evidence suggests that adiponectin, an obesity-related hormone, is inversely associated with breast cancer risk, particularly in postmenopausal women. Obesity is also associated with high levels of insulin.

Equol, adiponectin, insulin levels and risk of breast cancer.

Breast cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed cancers and the leading cause of cancer death among women. Soy isoflavones have been widely studied and among all isoflavones equol has been gaining interest with regard to its relationship with breast cancer risk. Obesity has been revealed as one of the breast cancer risk factors, known to be associated with high levels of circulating insulin and decreased levels of adiponectin.

Interaction between ESRα polymorphisms and environmental factors in osteoporosis.

We hypothesized that environmental factors might affect the relationship between genetic predisposition and the risk of bone mineral density (BMD) loss. Cases were 114 Japanese women with a confirmed diagnosis of postmenopausal osteoporosis and controls were 171 general Japanese women. Genetic risk of SNPs in the estrogen receptors was analyzed by a case-control study.

Relationship between hepatocellular carcinoma and impaired glucose tolerance among Japanese.

Background/aims: Both the incidence of diabetes mellitus (DM) and mortality from Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are increasing in Japan. As the association of overall cancer and HCC with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) has been studied rarely in the world including Japan, this study assessed their associations using cohort data of Hokkaido, Japan.

Methodology: After getting ethical consent, this study included 908 men and 1,081 women aged 30-77 years during 1977-78 and collected detailed information using the baseline survey.

Wnt3 modulates the characteristics and cobblestone area-supporting activity of human stromal cells.

Objective: Our objective was to investigate the expression and significance of Wnt proteins in adult human hematopoietic-supporting stromal cells.

Methods: Degenerate reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction was performed to screen telomerized human stromal cells (hTERT-stromal cells) and multipotent mesenchymal cells (hTERT-MSCs) for expression of Wnt genes. We studied the actions of Wnt proteins by overexpressing them in stromal cells and MSCs by retrovirus-mediated gene transfer.