Japanese Society of Hypertension

Dietary salt reduction is essential for the prevention of hypertension. However, food companies often lack reference information for setting appropriate salt-reduction targets. This study aimed to clarify how leading food companies in high-income countries outside Japan establish salt-reduction targets for product reformulation. A scoping review was conducted using PubMed, Google Scholar, and corporate websites. A questionnaire survey was also administered via email to companies with recognized good practices from January to March 2024. The study analyzed the scope of targeted products, salt (including sodium) content criteria, and achievement years, as well as incentives and challenges related to salt reduction. A total of 24 companies and two trade associations were included in the analysis. Among the 40 identified targets, 55% were based solely on salt, while the remaining included multiple nutrients. Regarding reformulation efforts, 68% of targets specified product quantities or proportions, and 55% committed to salt reduction in 33-100% of their products. Furthermore, 65% of the targets set salt criteria by food category; 80% used company-defined salt criteria, while the remaining used government-proposed benchmarks. The median implementation term was five years, with 65% of targets set to be achieved by 2025. Environmental, social, and governance investments were recognized as key incentives. To address reformulation challenges, stepwise approaches based on stakeholder cooperation were proposed. Overall, salt-reduction targets were set within each company's feasible range, considering government policies and global trends. These findings provide a foundation for promoting company-led initiatives to reduce salt intake and contribute to hypertension prevention.

General rules for recording endoscopic findings of esophageal varices were initially proposed in 1980 and revised in 1991. These rules have widely been used in Japan and other countries. Recently, portal hypertensive gastropathy has been recognized as a distinct histological and functional entity. Endoscopic ultrasonography can clearly depict vascular structures around the esophageal wall in patients with portal hypertension. Owing to progress in medicine, we have updated and slightly modified the former rules. The revised rules are simpler and more straightforward than the former rules and include newly recognized findings of portal hypertensive gastropathy and a new classification for endoscopic ultrasonographic findings.

This paper proposes a 4-D autonomous circuit represented by a constrained equation containing two small parameters. Various chaotic phenomena generated in this circuit are rigorously analyzed. This circuit contains two diodes and their ON resistance corresponds to the parameter. Here, an ideal case is considered in which the ON resistance of the diode is 0. In such a case, the circuit equation can be represented by a 2-D equation in a piecewise manner and the Poincaré map can be extracted as a 1-D map. The shape of this map is that of logistic map. By means of the latter, the generation of the period-doubling bifurcation and chaos observed in the circuit experiment can be rigorously explained.