Nihon eiseigaku zasshi. Japanese journal of hygiene
-
Nihon Eiseigaku Zasshi · Oct 1995
[A study of preventive medicine in relation to mental health among middle-management employees (Part 2)--effects of long working hours on lifestyles, perceived stress and working-life satisfaction among white-collar middle-management employees].
Recently, we have introduced the holistic method into health care of workers and aimed at improvement of Quality of Life (QOL). It has been made clear that primary prevention of diseases needs lifestyle appraisal. Therefore, we studied the daily working hours and the effects of long working hours on lifestyles, perceived stress and working-life satisfaction, which we used as a subjective index of Quality of Life (QOL), based on data obtained from a survey of 1,026 department chiefs and 2,902 section chiefs in 110 large companies in Japan in 1990. ⋯ The younger both department and section chiefs, the longer their working hours. (2) Both department and section chiefs had a significant relationship between long working hours and poor sleeping habits, poor physical exercise, feeling busy, irregularity of daily life and irregularity of daily meals. The department chiefs had a significant relationship between long working hours and unbalanced nutrition or no hobbies. The section chiefs had a significant relationship between long working hours and drinking many cups of tea or coffee, taking a lot of salt or ill physical condition during the past six months.
-
Nihon Eiseigaku Zasshi · Dec 1993
[Changes in the hypnograms of subjects exposed to repeated truck-passing sounds of 45, 50 and 55 dB (A)].
The effects of traffic noise on sleep were evaluated in an experimental room using recorded truck-passing sounds. Peak sound levels were 45, 50, 55 dB (A) at a frequency of one per hour. The background noise of the exposure night was Leq 32.4 dB (A). ⋯ TST, each sleep stage in minutes, % of sleep stage against TST, sleep efficiency, sleep latency, REM latency, REM cycle, REM duration, waking from sleep and the number of stage shifts of the exposure night did not significantly change compared to those of the control night. However, the sleep latency of the noise-exposed night increased significantly. Subjective sleep measured by five-factor scores and 8 items out of 29 constructing the five-factor scores of the OSA sleep inventory were decreased significantly by noise exposure, indicating deterioration of sleep quality.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
-
Nihon Eiseigaku Zasshi · Aug 1992
[The effect of noise on sleep--changes in hypnograms of subjects exposed to repeated truck-passing sound].
The effect of traffic noise on sleep was evaluated in an experimental room using repeated recorded truck-passing sounds. The peak sound level was 55, 60 or 65 dB (A) with frequencies of three times per hour. The background noise of the exposure night was Leq 42 dB (A) and that of the control night was Leq 35 dB (A). ⋯ Dividing the all-night into halves, the amount and % of each sleep stage were compared between the exposure and control night. There was no change of sleep stage in the former half, but the % and amount of REM sleep in the latter half were significantly decreased as a result of the noise exposure. The decreases of REM sleep and % REM against TST, especially in the latter half of all-night sleep, were caused by the intermittent truck-passing sounds 20 to 30 times per night.
-
Nihon Eiseigaku Zasshi · Oct 1990
[Contamination of urban air in a snowy district with 1-nitropyrene and particulate matter during the winter].
Nitroarenes, potent rodent carcinogens, have attracted much attention as environmental contaminants. Recently, simultaneous exposure to dust have been found to potentiate tumorigenicity of nitroarenes in rats (14). We hypothesized that inhabitants of northwestern Japan may be exposed to such substances in winter. ⋯ Thus, exposure situations with high concentrations of dust and 1-NP were confirmed to occur in Iwate. Finally, the risk posed by 1-NP in airborne particulate matter was estimated using the equation proposed by Cuddihy and McClellan (37) and was found to range from 3.12 x 10(-2) to 24.2 x 10(-2) lung cancer/year/10(6) people. Although the estimated risk due to 1-NP is relatively small, further surveillance is highly recommended in those areas since heavy dust exposure also occurs there.