http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fs20060620a3.html

A swelling dispute over our waistlines
Could you be at risk of a fatal heart attack or just bad health warnings?
Tuesday, June 20, 2006

By TOMOKO OTAKE
Staff writer
Japan's citizens are well-known for their slim figures, healthy eating 
habits and longevity.

The stomach on the left has an 87-cm circumference, the one on the right 95 
cm. Which on would put you at risk of diabetes, a stroke or a heart attck? 
Both, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
Or so you would think.
The Japanese government dropped a bombshell in mid-May -- almost a sixth of 
the population have or risk developing metabolic syndrome, a condition that 
can lead to diabetes, a stroke or a fatal heart attack. The Health, Labor 
and Welfare Ministry insists that to avert the danger many men with waists 
larger than 85 cm and women whose waists measure more than 90 cm need to 
change their diet and hit the gym, and fast.
Or perhaps not. The ministry's alert triggered reams of criticism from 
members of the medical establishment and political opponents, who accuse it 
of trying to scare perfectly healthy citizens; They say the ministry just 
wants us to get into even better shape in an effort to save money on a 
public-health bill forecast to balloon as the nation grays.
Others say this "disease-mongering" will have the opposite effect --  
unnecessary prescriptions and more taxpayers' money down the drain.
The health ministry readily admits that it wants to use the warning against 
metabolic syndrome as a "major part" of its approach to preventing 
lifestyle-related diseases.
But the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the European Association for 
the Study of Diabetes (EASD) issued a joint statement in September 2005, 
saying that metabolic syndrome is so sloppily defined that doctors should 
not use it as a diagnosis at all.
The term metabolic syndrome refers to a mix of conditions including fat 
around the waist, high blood pressure and high blood sugar. Internationally, 
the syndrome is defined differently from country to country and across 
various ethnic groups. The World Health Organization has its own definition, 
which takes into account, among other factors, waist size, fat/cholesterol 
levels and diabetic symptoms (caused by not enough insulin in the blood or 
the body's inability to use insulin to convert sugar into energy).
The size of your waistline is the No. 1 criteria for diagnosis in Japan. If 
it exceeds the threshold and you have at least two of the following -- high 
blood pressure, high cholesterol or fat levels, or high blood sugar -- then 
you have the syndrome. If your waistline exceeds guidelines and you only 
have one of the three components, you are considered "at risk."
The Japanese definition was compiled in April 2005 -- five months before the 
ADA-EASD statement -- by a committee representing eight researchers' groups 
with specialties from diabetes to obesity to arteriosclerosis.
But their definition, the only one in the world that sets a smaller 
waistline for men than women, is so controversial that Kazuko Kori, a Lower 
House member from the Democratic Party of Japan who accused the ministry of 
"disease-mongering" during a recent Diet committee, and in an interview with 
The Japan Times, has gone as far as to raise the specter of a possible 
conflict of interest between drug companies and the head of the committee.
Kori notes that Dr. Yuji Matsuzawa, a leading obesity expert and director of 
Sumitomo Hospital, has "supervised" leaflets produced by pharmaceutical 
companies, which contain references to certain drugs. Kori also said that 
Matsuzawa appeared as a guest speaker for a meeting sponsored by a drug 
company last year.
"The drug-induced AIDS case was exacerbated by an authoritative expert who 
put the profits of drug companies first and patients' lives second," she 
said. "Granted, it is only natural for profit-driven companies to seek 
profit. What I think is a problem is the sheer lack of critical thinking on 
the part of the government, its panels and experts serving on those panels. 
And it is us, the public, who would pay the bills from idiotic policies put 
forwarded by those 'experts.' "
Yasuhiko Ishii, deputy director of the office for lifestyle-related disease 
control at the health ministry, scoffed at the concern that the panel's 
academic integrity was compromised by industry. "We are not pushing for the 
use of drugs. Our stance is, 'First, exercise. Second, improve diet. Third, 
stop smoking. Then if the three don't work, take medicine as a last resort,' 
" he said.
Concerns about the waist limits, however, are shared by others. Dr. 
Mitsuhiko Noda, a diabetes specialist and director of the endocrinology and 
metabolism department at the state-run International Medical Center of Japan 
in Tokyo, supports the use of metabolic syndrome as a diagnosis but says the 
current definition "is so immature that it almost makes me think that some 
intention to change policies is behind [the government's move to play up the 
syndrome]."
"The sample data for calculating the waistline are too small to be taken 
seriously," he said, noting that only 196 women were included. "Without 
enough data, the (experts') panel should have withheld a consensus at that 
time. . . . With the current definition of 'metabolic syndrome,' it's as if 
they've dressed a beautiful princess in dirty clothes."
Yoichi Ogushi, professor of medical informatics at Tokai University's School 
of Medicine, warns that the government's excessive emphasis on combating the 
syndrome would lead to pointless exams and prescriptions. Japan already 
spends 300 billion yen a year on anticholesterol drugs, most of which, 
Ogushi says, are unnecessary because cholesterol levels considered dangerous 
in Japan are lower than international standards.
He also pointed to a recent statement from the International Diabetes 
Federation, a worldwide association of diabetes experts, which rejected 
Japan's waistline figures, instead recommending the nation use Chinese and 
South Asian values (90 cm for men and 80 cm for women) until more data 
becomes available.
Matsuzawa, the obesity expert who helped create the Japanese guideline, 
rebutted the critics. He admitted that samples used to define the proper 
measurement were small, but said that Japan alone had used CT-scanning, 
which shows the visceral fat (fat between organs) that triggers strokes and 
heart attacks, separate from subcutaneous fat (fat stored under the skin).
As for the IDF paper that recommended Chinese and South Asian values for 
Japanese, Matsuzawa said that Japanese people shouldn't be bundled together 
with other Asians because their diet is different. As for the ADA-EASD 
statement, he said that it is just one paper, noting that "a mountain of 
data" exists on metabolic syndrome as a predictor of cardiovascular 
diseases.
Furthermore, Matsuzawa called Kori's accusation against him in the Diet 
"defamatory," adding that his industry links -- which he said include 
advising drug companies -- are completely legal. "Our metabolic syndrome 
campaign has nothing to do with drug company marketing," he said. "I get 
asked to speak by a lot of people, and I feel it's an expert's social duty 
to fulfill such needs. That's why I make time for the speeches out of my 
busy schedule as a hospital director."
Still, Ogushi is adamant that academics' industry ties need to be made more 
transparent. Some medical journals overseas mandate that authors writing 
papers on clinical studies must disclose any financial conflicts of 
interest, including honorarium for speeches, stock ownership and consulting 
contracts -- a practice hardly common in Japan.
Though researcher groups in Japan do compile "clinical practice 
guidelines" -- an evidence-based guide for doctors and patients on how to 
treat diseases -- with grants from the drug industry, they hardly ever make 
it public, he said.
"Financial disclosure by politicians has advanced a little, as their 
influence peddling once became a big social problem," Ogushi said. "Now 
Cabinet ministers disclose their assets. . . . But when it comes to doctors 
serving on government panels, and for researchers' groups writing clinical 
practice guidelines, Japan has no disclosure rules whatsoever."