This study examined young Japanese adults’ values regarding the consumption of balanced meals consisting of staples, main dishes, and side dishes and how these values relate to demographics, ...socioeconomic status, nutrition knowledge, attitudes, skills, behaviors, and diet-related quality of life. Data were obtained from the “Survey on Dietary Habits of the Younger Generation” (2000 responses, ages 18–39), of which 1888 valid responses were analyzed. The principal component analysis identified three value patterns: PC1—valuable yet burdensome; PC2—environment-reliant, weak initiative; and PC3—low value due to hassle. Both PC1 and PC3 were associated with prioritizing prices in food choices and knowledge of a balanced meal. However, PC1 participants valued balanced meals and possessed meal preparation skills, whereas PC3 participants valued balanced meals less and had negative attitudes toward eating them. PC1 was positively associated with the frequency of eating balanced meals while PC3 was negatively associated. PC2 individuals had positive attitudes toward eating balanced meals but were less concerned about nutritional balance when choosing foods themselves. This study highlights the importance of adopting an approach that aligns with the value patterns of the target population.
The primary aim of this study was to evaluate factors associated with changes in food-preparation practices during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Japan and its associations to ...food-group intake. To examine this, a cross-sectional online survey was conducted in July 2020. Participants were 2285 adults aged 20–69 years who resided in any of 13 prefectures in Japan where specific COVID-19 regulations had been implemented. Self-reported changes in food-preparation practices when compared to the pre-COVID-19 pandemic period were measured as “increased” (24.6%), “decreased” (7.3%), and “no change” (68.1%), respectively. Stepwise logistic regression analyses indicated that participants who increased the time and effort for food preparation were younger in age, partially working remotely, experiencing reduced household income due to COVID-19, but highly concerned the importance of diet. On the other hand, participants whose household income decreased, and household economic status worsened, as well as those whose importance of diet deteriorated due to COVID-19 were more likely to decrease time and effort for cooking. Although the increased group were more likely to prepare meals with raw ingredients, the decreased group showed higher frequency of using takeout. These results indicated major determinants of changes in time spending on food preparation in consequence of COVID-19, and highlighted essential targets for future nutrition education.
This study evaluated changes in diet quality during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and its association with variations in attitudes or behavior, as well as health status changes. ...Participants were Japanese adults aged 20-69 years who resided in 13 prefectures where specific cautions were announced to prevent the spread of the virus. An online survey was conducted in September 2021, and participants were those who shopped for food or prepared meals more than twice a week during the survey. Overall, 2101 participants were analyzed. An improved or worsened diet quality was determined based on changes in food consumption patterns, and participants were categorized into three groups (improved diet quality (IDQ), worsened diet quality (WDQ), and others). The IDQ group participants (10.2%) improved their dietary consciousness during COVID-19, cooked almost everything from ingredients, and increased their balanced meal eating frequency. However, the WDQ participants (11.1%) had worsened dietary consciousness and increased consumption of takeaway meals and alcohol but decreased balanced meal consumption. Cooking frequency changes were not independent determinants of variations in diet quality. Our results show that the diet quality changes during COVID-19 were possibly caused by changes in dietary consciousness or different levels of meal preparation practices.
Introduction: Whether good baseline quality of life (QOL) is linked to improved QOL: improved overall survival (OS) which is relevant to HLA-restricted peptides has not been evaluated, and the causal ...nature of this correlation is not known.Methods: Pretreatment patient-reported QOL using the QOL-20 questionnaire and blood human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) was examined in 437 and 325 gastric cancer (GC) patients, respectively. We focused on the similarity between human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) genes, and HLA-restricted CD8+ cytotoxic T-lymphocyte epitopes on HERV and HIV genes were predicted using bioinformatics. We focused on loneliness/sleep of QOL-20, and QOL-relevant HLA-restricted HERV gene derived-peptides (QOL-relevant HERV peptides) were selected based on the similarity of HLA-restricted HIV peptides and assessed the association between these factors and OS.Results: Some items (state of health, appetite, suffocation, and sleep) have been identified as prognostic factors in patients with GC. The benefits of harboring QOL-relevant HERV peptides were seen in the positive category responders who responded to the positive category in each item, except for the worries item. Among responders to the loneliness item who had QOL-relevant HERV peptides, male positive category responders and female negative category responders who responded to negative category harboring HLA-A31 showed significantly better outcomes than the other groups (log-rank test, P = 0.016 and P = 0.043, respectively). Positive category responders ≤ 64 years old harboring HLA-A11 and negative category responders harboring HLA-A33 showed significantly better outcomes than the other groups (log-rank test, P = 0.048 and P = 0.024, respectively).Conclusions: Our research on QOL relevant-HERV peptides will facilitate the development of more precise personalized medicine for cancer treatment.
With the growing interest in healthy and sustainable diets, studying diets with high nutritional quality and low environmental impact is needed. We focused on the nitrogen footprint (NFP)—an ...indicator of reactive nitrogen loss that causes various environmental impacts—of Japanese diets using individual dietary records and identified the characteristics of lower NFP diets. This cross-sectional study was a secondary data analysis from the 2017 Saitama Prefecture Nutrition Survey. We analyzed the data obtained from a questionnaire and two-day dietary records of 479 men and women aged 30–65 y who had no misreported or missing data. The NFP was calculated using the virtual nitrogen factors of each food group reported in a previous study. After assessing NFP and its contributions, we conducted sub-group analysis for participants with appropriate weight status and adequate protein intake, classifying them into three groups according to tertiles of NFP to protein ratio. We compared NFP, its contributions, and nutrient intake between the groups. The total NFP (kg N/y) was 18.2±5.0 in men and 16.1±4.4 in women. In the sub-group analysis, total NFPs of the lower NFP group were 16.5±3.1 in men and 13.6±2.8 in women. Cereals, pulses, and fish and seafood contributed more significantly to the total NFP in the lower NFP group than in the higher NFP group. These results suggest that adequate protein intake from a variety of food sources is required to lower the environmental impact of adequate diets.
To estimate the consumption of ultra-processed foods and determine its association with dietary quality among middle-aged Japanese adults.
Cross-sectional study using data from the Saitama Prefecture ...Health and Nutrition Survey 2011. Dietary intake was assessed using one- or two-day dietary records. Sociodemographic and lifestyle factors were obtained via self-administered questionnaire. Food items were classified according to the NOVA system into four groups: unprocessed or minimally processed foods; processed culinary ingredients; processed foods; and ultra-processed foods. The dietary share of each NOVA food group and their subgroups was calculated in relation to total energy intake, and the average dietary content of key nutrients was determined across tertiles of the dietary energy share of ultra-processed foods (low, middle and high intake).
Saitama Prefecture in Japan.
Community-dwelling adults aged 30-59 years (256 men, 361 women).
Consumption of unprocessed or minimally processed foods, processed culinary ingredients, processed foods and ultra-processed foods contributed 44·9 (se 0·8) %, 5·5 (se 0·2) %, 11·3 (se 0·4) % and 38·2 (se 0·9) % of total daily energy intake, respectively. A positive and statistically significant linear trend was found between the dietary share of ultra-processed foods (tertiles) and the dietary content of total and saturated fat, while an inverse relationship was observed for protein, vitamin K, vitamin B6, dietary fibre, magnesium, phosphorus and iron.
Our findings show that higher consumption of ultra-processed foods was associated with decreased dietary quality among Japanese adults.
Overweight and obesity have reached epidemic proportions worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an increased need for remote implementation of weight-loss interventions; therefore, the ...effectiveness of web-based interventions needed to be assessed. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of web-based interventions and their potency in facilitating weight changes in adults who were overweight or obese. We searched PubMed and Ichu-shi Web from the first year of inclusion in each database until the search date (30 September 2020). Among 1466 articles retrieved from the two databases and manual search, 97 were selected to undergo qualitative analysis and 51 articles were subjected to quantitative analysis. Qualitative analysis of 97 articles demonstrated that articles showing significant effectiveness mostly used the following components: social support, self-monitoring for behavior, self-monitoring for the outcome (weight), behavioral goal setting, information about health consequences, and outcome goal setting. Quantitative analysis of 51 articles showed a significant effectiveness of web-based intervention (standardized mean difference, -0.57; 95% confidence interval, -0.75 to -0.40). This study demonstrated the effectiveness of web-based interventions on weight change in adults with overweight and obesity. Subgroup meta-analyses identified personalized information provision and expert advice to be remarkably effective components.
Objectives
Excess salt intake is a major risk factor for hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Modifying workplace environments has been recognized to be important for reducing salt intake. ...However, studies examining the effects of improving the workplace environment regarding salt reduction are limited. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of workplace dietary intervention on employees' salt intake and sodium‐to‐potassium (Na/K) ratio.
Methods
A quasi‐experimental study was conducted. Two small business establishments in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, were allocated as the intervention (n = 69) and comparison (n = 68) workplaces, respectively. The 1‐year intervention involving healthy lunch and nutrition education was implemented in the intervention workplace. Spot urine samples, physical assessments, and self‐administered questionnaire data were collected at baseline, 6 months, and 1 year after the start of the intervention. Analysis of covariance was conducted to investigate differences in the salt intake or Na/K ratio between the study workplaces at year 1. Educational status and rotating work schedules were included as covariates.
Results
Salt intake in the intervention workplace decreased significantly from 10.7 to 9.3 g (−1.4 g change; 95% confidence interval CI: “−2.4, −0.5”). The adjusted difference in changes in salt intake between workplaces was statistically significant (−3.7 g change; 95% CI: “−5.2, −2.3”). Although no significant change was observed in the Na/K ratio in the intervention workplace (3.37–3.08; −0.29 change; 95% CI: “−0.59, 0.01”), the adjusted difference in changes between the workplaces was statistically significant (−0.60 change; 95% CI: “−1.03, −0.17”).
Conclusions
Providing healthy lunch and nutrition education may be effective approaches to reduce employees' salt intake and Na/K ratio.
Introduction
Diets that promote people’s health and environment-friendly are essential for achieving a sustainable society. Protein sources are the main contributors of greenhouse gas emissions ...(GHGE), and lower intakes of livestock meat and more intakes of poultry meat and legumes are recommended. Although Japanese consume less meat than other countries, it is unclear whether the GHGE of healthy Japanese meals is sufficient to solve climate change. In addition, most previous studies have focused on general household meals, not necessarily healthy meals. Therefore, we explored recommended food choices of protein sources in both healthy and environment-friendly meals.
Methods
We used data on healthy meals provided by retailers certified under the “Healthy Meal and Food Environment” Certification System. We first examined the number of main ingredients in the staple, main, and side dishes. We then compared the GHGE of meals with different combinations of main ingredients of main dishes (protein sources). To estimate the GHGE, we developed a database of GHGE per food weight for each food in the Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan.
Results
Data on a total of 509 meals were considered in the analysis. The mean ± standard deviation of the total GHGE of one meal was 1044.7 ± 614.9 g-CO
2
eq/650 kcal. The minimum and maximum values were 412.5 and 4268.5 g-CO
2
eq/650 kcal, respectively. Regarding meat, chicken was more likely to be used in meals with low GHGE.
Discussion
The healthy meals with the lowest GHGE in this study had the potential to contribute to solving climate change. Although healthy meals in this study were created with the same nutrient level criteria, a large difference existed between the minimum and maximum GHGE and it depends on the choice of protein ingredients. The findings may be useful to develop food guide for Japanese taking environmental perspectives into account.
This study investigated the genetic and pathogenic variation of the subgroups of clade 2 strains of Shiga toxin (Stx)-producing
Escherichia coli
(STEC) O157. A total of 111 strains of STEC O157 ...isolated in Shimane prefecture, Japan, were classified in clade 2 (
n
= 39), clade 3 (
n
= 16), clade 4/5 (
n
= 3), clade 7 (
n
= 14), clade 8 (
n
= 17), and clade 12 (
n
= 22) by single-nucleotide polymorphism analysis and lineage-specific polymorphism assay-6. These results showed a distinct difference from our previous study in which clade 3 strains were the most prevalent strains in three other prefectures in Japan, indicating that the clade distribution of O157 strains was different in different geographic areas in Japan. Phylogenetic analysis using insertion sequence (IS)
629
distribution data showed that clade 2 strains formed two clusters, designated 2a and 2b. Stx2 production by cluster 2b strains was significantly higher than by cluster 2a strains (
P
< 0.01). In addition, population genetic analysis of the clade 2 strains showed significant linkage disequilibrium in the IS
629
distribution of the strains in clusters 2a and 2b (
P
< 0.05). The
Φ
PT
values calculated using the IS
629
distribution data indicated that strains in clusters 2a and 2b were genetically different (
P
< 0.001). Cluster 2b strains are a highly pathogenic phylogenetic group and their geographic spread may be a serious public health concern.
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