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Abstract

The Global Burden of Disease Study showed that the years of life lost due to stroke and coronary heart disease were the highest in Japan in 2010. The high morbidity and mortality noted in the Japanese population were given significant cost to the society. Cardiovascular diseases share risk factors with other major non-communicable diseases, including tobacco smoking, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, history of diabetes, metabolic factors (hypertension, high serum glucose, low high density lipid-cholesterol, hypertriglyceridemia and overweight). The Japan national health and nutrition surveys since 1945 have provided the prominent information for health promotion strategies issued by the health ministry. In Japan, most (63%) dietary sodium came from soy sauce (20%), commercially processed fish/seafood (15%), salted soups (15%) and preserved vegetables (13%). The national campaigns for reducing salt intake, together with other hypertension control programs, resulted in the great reduction of stroke mortality since 1960s. However, because of the westernization of lifestyles such as high-fat diets and sedentary work patterns associated with socioeconomic development, there has a possible increase in the incidence of mortality from coronary heart disease in Japan. For instance, the mean BMI increased in Japanese men with an increment of 0.44 kg/m2 between 1976 and 1995. In 2009, the obesity was 31.7% in men and 21.8% in women aged 20 and above. The prevalence of high total cholesterol (�220 mg/d L) increased from 15% to 27% for men and 19% to 35% for women.

Biography

Enbo Ma is a public health physician and has a PhD in Epidemiology. Currently he is Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical Trial and Clinical Epidemiology, University of Tsukuba Faculty of Medicine, Japan. He has published some papers on cancer and cardiovascular diseases in medical and public health journals.

Email: mae@md.tsukuba.ac.jp