Obstructive sleep apnoea increases the incidence of morning peak of onset in acute myocardial infarction.

Aims: There exists a discrepancy regarding the relationship between obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) and circadian variation during the onset of acute myocardial infarction (MI). We hypothesized that OSA patients show a characteristic circadian variation and that the severity of OSA significantly affects this variation.

Methods And Results: The present study included 288 patients with first acute MI who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention within 12 h of symptom onset.

Graves' disease complicated by ventricular fibrillation in three men who were smokers.

Background: Thyrotoxicosis is known to be associated with sinus tachycardia and supraventricular tachyarrhythmias, but rarely with ventricular fibrillation (Vf), which has only occurred in some patients with hypokalemic periodic paralysis or ischemic heart disease.

Patient Findings: We present three men who were transferred to our hospital with Graves' disease who developed idiopathic Vf. None of them had hypokalemic periodic paralysis or ischemic heart disease but all were smokers.

Acute stress response modified by modest inhibition of growth hormone axis: a potential machinery of the anti-aging effect of calorie restriction.

Calorie restriction (CR) may exert antiaging effects by inhibiting the growth hormone (GH)/IGF-1 axis. The present study investigated the effect of modest inhibition of GH signaling on stress response and compared it with the effect of CR. Heterozygous (tg/-) rats of a transgenic strain of male rats, whose GH signaling was inhibited by overexpression of the anti-sense GH gene, and wild-type (WT) rats were used.

Clinical, serologic and magnetic resonance imaging of 3 cases of inflammatory myopathy with abundant macrophages in the Japanese population.

We report the first 3 cases of inflammatory myopathy with abundant macrophages (IMAM) to be found in an Asian country. Diagnosis of IMAM was based on the infiltration of CD68+ macrophages into biopsied specimens, particularly the fascia. Proximal skeletal muscle symptoms and signs, elevation of creatine kinase, and myogenic changes in electromyography were found in all of the cases, and magnetic resonance imaging clearly revealed thickening of the fascia.

Manipulation of caloric content but not diet composition, attenuates the deficit in learning and memory of senescence-accelerated mouse strain P8.

Calorie restriction (CR) is an experimental intervention in laboratory animals that attenuates age-associated increases in morbidity, mortality, and functional impairment. It is characterized by mild ketosis, hypoinsulinemia and hypoglycemia. In this study, we examined whether metabolic simulation of CR by a diet of isocaloric ketogenic or hypoinsulinemic diets ameliorated the learning and memory deficit in a strain of senescence-accelerated prone mice (SAMP8), a mouse model of age-dependent impairments in learning and memory.