Jissen Women's University

About: Jissen Women's University is a education organization based out in Hino, Japan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Nested case-control study & Cohort study. The organization has 175 authors who have published 300 publications receiving 5506 citations.

Association of Sleep Duration with Mortality from Cardiovascular Disease and Other Causes for Japanese Men and Women: the JACC Study

Abstract: PREVIOUS COHORT STUDIES HAVE DEMONSTRATED THAT SHORT OR LONG SLEEP DURATION IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE INCIDENCE OF OR MORTALITY FROM cardiovascular disease,1–4 as well as total mortality.1,3–6 The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I showed a 1.5-fold increase in the risk of stroke for persons with more than 8 hours of sleep, compared with those with 6 to 8 hours of sleep.1 The Nurse's Health Study also reported that, compared with 8 hours of sleep, short or long sleep duration of 5 or more hours or 9 or more hours was associated with an increased incidence of coronary heart disease for women aged 40 to 65 years,2 and, compared with 7 hours of sleep, long sleep duration of 9 or more hours was associated with mortality from cardiovascular disease, noncardiovascular disease/noncancer, and all causes, whereas short sleep duration of 5 hours or less was associated with mortality from all causes and noncardiovascular disease for women aged 40 to 65 years.3 The Whitehall II cohort study found a U-shaped association between sleep duration and mortality from cardiovascular disease and noncardiovascular disease and between sleep duration and all causes for men and women aged 35 to 55 years.4 An earlier report of our Japanese cohort study5 also showed a U-shaped relationship between sleep duration and total mortality, but cause-specific analyses were not carried out. Thus, the association between short or long sleep duration and mortality from cardiovascular disease and other causes for Japanese men and women has remained unclear. To examine the sex-specific associations of sleep duration and mortality from stroke, coronary heart disease, and other causes, as well as total mortality, we analyzed the extended follow-up data from a large-scale prospective study of approximately 98,000 Japanese men and women.

Probiotic Bifidobacteria Protect Mice from Lethal Infection with Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli O157:H7

Abstract: The anti-infectious activity of probiotic Bifidobacteria against Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7 was examined in a fatal mouse STEC infection model. Stable colonization of the murine intestines was achieved by the oral administration of Bifidobacterium breve strain Yakult (naturally resistant to streptomycin sulfate) as long as the mice were treated with streptomycin in their drinking water (5 mg/ml). The pathogenicity of STEC infection, characterized by marked body weight loss and subsequent death, observed in the infected controls was dramatically inhibited in the B. breve-colonized group. Moreover, Stx production by STEC cells in the intestine was almost completely inhibited in the B. breve-colonized group. A comparison of anti-STEC activity among several Bifidobacterium strains with natural resistance to streptomycin revealed that strains such as Bifidobacterium bifidum ATCC 15696 and Bifidobacterium catenulatum ATCC 27539T did not confer an anti-infectious activity, despite achieving high population levels similar to those of effective strains, such as B. breve strain Yakult and Bifidobacterium pseudocatenulatum DSM 20439. The effective strains produced a high concentration of acetic acid (56 mM) and lowered the pH of the intestine (to pH 6.75) compared to the infected control group (acetic acid concentration, 28 mM; pH, 7.15); these effects were thought to be related to the anti-infectious activity of these strains because the combination of a high concentration of acetic acid and a low pH was found to inhibit Stx production during STEC growth in vitro.