Epidemiological elucidation of the pathogenesis of lifestyle-related disease and preventive measures in consideration of sex difference

我们发现，在生活方式与西方人不同的日本男性中，生活方式与健康状况显著相关。然而，在日本女性中并没有观察到这种联系。这种差异可以用女性比男性拥有更好的生活方式和更健康的身体状况的事实来解释。多因素分析显示，在男性中，注意饮食习惯与健康状况呈显著正相关。近年来，许多人对自己的饭菜感兴趣。因此，饮食习惯的干预对改善健康状况可能是有效的。然而，容易改变的生活方式在不同的人之间是不同的。我们的结果表明，任何健康实践都能带来良好的健康状况。另一方面，健康习惯与健康状况之间的关系在女性中未被发现。50岁年龄与女性健康状况有很强的相关性。我们应该采取措施预防绝经后妇女的生活方式相关疾病。对于这个问题，我们关注的是脂联素，它是最近发现的一种由244个氨基酸组成的脂肪细胞来源的血浆蛋白。循环中的脂联素浓度与体重和脂肪量呈负相关，尽管它完全来自人类的脂肪组织。这种负相关性被认为与肥胖者胰岛素抵抗的起源有关。因此，我们评估绝经状态对血清脂联素浓度的影响，并探讨脂联素在胰岛素抵抗中的作用是否受绝经状态的影响。过渡到更年期会增加血清脂联素的浓度。此外，脂联素可能在绝经后而不是绝经前的早期胰岛素抵抗状态的发展中发挥重要作用。

We found that lifestyle was significantly associated with health condition in Japanese men whose lifestyles were different from those of the occidentals. However, the association was not observed among Japanese women. The difference could be explained by the fact that women had more good lifestyles and more healthy condition than men. Multivariate analysis showed that taking care of eating habits were significantly and positively associated with health condition among men. In recent years, many people take interest in their own meal. Therefore, the intervention in eating habits may be effective in the improvement of health condition. However, the lifestyles which can be changed easily are differed among the individuals. Our results suggested that taking any health practice leads to good health condition. On the other hand, the relationship between healthy custom and health condition was not found among women. The age of 50 years-old was strongly related to female health condition. We should take measures against the lifestyle-related disease among postmenopausal women. As for this issue, we paid attention to adiponectin which is an adipocyte-derived plasma protein of 244 amino acids that has been discovered recently. Circulating adiponectin concentration is inversely correlated with body weight and the amount of fat mass, despite being solely derived from adipose tissue in humans. This inverse correlation has been suggested to be related to the origin of insulin resistance in obese subjects. Therefore, we evaluated the influence of menopausal status on the serum adiponectin concentration and investigate whether the contribution of adiponectin to insulin resistance is modified by menopausal status. The transition to menopause increases serum adiponectin concentrations. Moreover, adiponectin may play an important role in the development of an incipient insulin-resistant state after, rather than before, menopause.