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Research activities

Investigators in the Division of Adult Health Science are studying the relationship of nutritional status to occurence of stroke, ischemic heart disease and cancer by using epidemiological methods and principles .
Basic medicine pursues studies of the universal biological phenomenon of life on cellular, molecular and genetic levels and clinical medicine bases its focus on the process of the disease and its results in an individual . Epidemiology focuses on human groups, individuals and ecosystems . Instead of the effects or results of disease, epidemiology examines origins and causes of diseases and association to disease prevention.
Nutritional characteristics of an individual, a component of the population under study, are comprehensively assessed by dietary intake, physical activity, anthropometry, biochemical compo- nents in urine and blood specimens and immunological examinations. The occurrence of stroke, ischemic heart disease and cancer in the cohorts is determined using both active surveillance and registry .
In the determination of nutritional etiology, findings from ecological studies lead to the formation of a hypothesis. The hypothesis is then tested in sequence by case control studies and cohort studies.
Nutritional risk factors and preventive factors are then identified. Community based intervention trials have been designed and conducted to ascertain whether modification of such dietary factors in patients is followed by reductions in three specified diseases in the targeted study populations in Shibata, Niigata Prefecture; Shiso, Hyogo Prefecture; and Tama, Tokyo Metropolis.
In response to calls for internationalization, a Japan-US joint study on cardiovascular risk factors in school children (Prof. Darwin R.Labarthe, The University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston, USA) and a Japan-Korea joint study (Prof. Jin Soon Ju, Hallym University, Korea Nutrition Institute, Korea) are in progress. Technological assistance programs in undernutrition are also being designed for developing Asian countries, from a hygienic view point.