Changes in living pattern and health of middle- and high-aged people in Yachiho Village, Nagano Prefecture with special reference to relations between blood patterns and circulatory organs.

Abstract

In the last 20 years since 1960, the population of Yachiho Village in Nagano Prefecture had decreased by 1, 089 (17.5%). In the same period, the share of people, 70 years old and over, had increased from 4.5% to 10.4 percent, suggesting that depopulation and aging are in progress. By type of farm management, farming families with sideline jobs share 87.4% of the population and there is a conspicuous increase in the number of farming families for which the non-agricultural income is greater than the agricultural income. Agricultural mechanization began to make rapid progress in or 1970: power cultivators are owned by all farming families and power sprayers and harvesters by about half of them.Due to the increase in income from non-agricultural work and the development of merchandise distribution systems, the intake of animal food, which used to be significantly small in the rural communities, has increased. In the last 20 years, the intake has increased by 6.3 times for meat, 1.4 times for fish and 4.7 times for eggs.A health care program for all residents of Yachiho Village has been instituted since 1954. The disease the prevalence of which was found to be highest in the past annual mass health screenings is hypertension. A check of the prevalence of stroke and myocardial infarction, which is an important parameter to assess effects from hypertension control, indicates that the prevalence of strokes was down 30.7% in 1971-82, the latter half of the control perind, from 1959-70, the former half. Howevre, there was a slight rise is the prevalence of myocardial infarction. The prevalence of strokes to myocardial infarction was 16: 1 in the former half and 9: 1 in the latter half, suggesting that prevalence of strokes was overwhelmingly high.There has been an increase in the number of healthy old people under the village's comprehensive health care program. They work till they reach a considerably high age and their health condition is good.Due to changes in the dietary pattern and a drop in the burdening of farm work, however, the obesity rate has increased among residents of Yachiho Village, and the cholesterol level, which used to be low, has risen. Particularly conspicuous are the rises in the numbers of obese persons and patients with cholesteremia among females in their 50s and 60s and among males in their 40s.In order to further decrease the prevalence of strokes and prevent an increase in that of myocardial infarction, there is a need for an elaborate guidance and control program by vocation, sex and age.