title: Acute non-cancer mortality excess after polychlorinated biphenyls and polychlorinated dibenzofurans mixed exposure from contaminated rice oil: Yusho.
abstract: In Japan in 1968, rice-oil contaminated by polychlorinated biphenyls and polychlorinated dibenzofurans caused severe food poisoning, termed "Yusho" (oil disease). Several previous studies attempted to evaluate the effects targeting officially-certified Yusho patients. However, these studies have several limitations such as the left-truncated nature of the registry or residual confounding arising from the referent population selection. We thus conducted an area-based standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) study using vital statistics. A severely affected area (Tamanoura area) was adopted as the exposure group, with a reference population from Nagasaki prefecture in Kyushu, which included the Tamanoura. A large number of residents in Tamanoura were exposed to the rice-oil (28% of all the certified cases as of 2009). We estimated SMRs of non-cancer and cancer diseases for the years 1968-2002. Shortly after the exposure, SMRs of all causes, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, pneumonia/bronchitis, and bronchus/lung cancer were elevated. In particular, SMRs of heart disease were 1.97 [95% confidence intervals (CI): 1.09-3.56] in 1968, 2.05 (95% CI: 1.16-3.60) in 1969, and 1.89 (95% CI: 1.05-3.41) in 1975. However, we did not observe clear increase in SMRs more than 10 years after the exposure. This study provides further evidence in Yusho, especially on acute effects on non-cancer mortality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Health Policy, Hiroshima University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, 1-2-3 Kasumi, Minami-ku, Hiroshima 734-8551, Japan. white-eye@hiroshima-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Saori
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kashima
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yorifuji
authors.forename: Toshihide
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tsuda
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001572:Benzofurans / Q000378:metabolism / Q000633:toxicity*; D002423:Cause of Death; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D000072338:Dibenzofurans, Polychlorinated; D004042:Dietary Fats, Unsaturated; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls / Q000378:metabolism / Q000633:toxicity*; D011164:Porphyrias / Q000150:complications / Q000401:mortality*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D001572:Benzofurans; D000072338:Dibenzofurans, Polychlorinated; D004042:Dietary Fats, Unsaturated; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls