Life as an evacuee after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident is a cause of polycythemia: the Fukushima Health Management Survey

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Background

The Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster forced people to evacuate their hometowns. Many evacuees from the government-designated evacuation zone were forced to change their lifestyle, diet, exercise, and other personal habits. The Comprehensive Health Check (CHC), 1 of 4 detailed surveys of The Fukushima Health Management Survey (FHMS), was implemented to support the prevention of lifestyle-related disease. The aim of this study was to analyze changes in red blood cell count (RBC), hemoglobin (Hb) levels, and hematocrit (Ht) levels by comparing data from the medical health checkup before and after the disaster in individuals who were 40 years old or older.

Methods

Subjects in this study were Japanese men and women living in the vicinity of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima prefecture. Annual health checkups with a focus on metabolic syndrome for insured persons/dependents aged 40 or older by Health Care Insurers have been conducted since 2008. All analyses in this study were limited to men and women aged 40–90 years. Changes in RBC, Hb levels, Ht levels, and prevalence of polycythemia before and after the disaster were compared.

Results

First, RBC, Hb, and Ht significantly increased in both men and women evacuees. The evacuation was significantly associated with increased Hb levels after adjustment for age, gender, smoking status, excess ethanol intake, BMI, and baseline Hb level (β = 0.16, p < 0.001). Furthermore, the prevalence of polycythemia stratified by smoking status or obesity also increased in the evacuee group.

Conclusions

To our knowledge, this is the first report revealing that the evacuation was associated with the risk of polycythemia. This information could be very important for periodic health checkup and lifestyle recommendations for evacuees in the future.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-1318) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Related collections

Most cited references 6

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Measurements of individual radiation doses in residents living around the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

Shigenobu Nagataki, Noboru Takamura, Kenji Kamiya … (2013)

At the outset of the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011, the radiation doses experienced by residents were calculated from the readings at monitoring posts, with several assumptions being made from the point of view of protection and safety. However, health effects should also be estimated by obtaining measurements of the individual radiation doses. The individual external radiation doses, determined by a behavior survey in the "evacuation and deliberate evacuation area" in the first 4 months, were <5 mSv in 97.4% of residents (maximum: 15 mSv). Doses in Fukushima Prefecture were <3 mSv in 99.3% of 386,572 residents analyzed. External doses in Fukushima City determined by personal dosimeters were <1 mSv/3 months (September-November, 2011) in 99.7% of residents (maximum: 2.7 mSv). Thyroid radiation doses, determined in March using a NaI (TI) scintillation survey meter in children in the evacuation and deliberate evacuation area, were <10 mSv in 95.7% of children (maximum: 35 mSv). Therefore, all doses were less than the intervention level of 50 mSv proposed by international organizations. Internal radiation doses determined by cesium-134 ((134)C) and cesium-137 ((137)C) whole-body counters (WBCs) were <1 mSv in 99% of the residents, and the maximum thyroid equivalent dose by iodine-131 WBCs was 20 mSv. The exploratory committee of the Fukushima Health Management Survey mentions on its website that radiation from the accident is unlikely to be a cause of adverse health effects in the future. In any event, sincere scientific efforts must continue to obtain individual radiation doses that are as accurate as possible. However, observation of the health effects of the radiation doses described above will require reevaluation of the protocol used for determining adverse health effects. The dose-response relationship is crucial, and the aim of the survey should be to collect sufficient data to confirm the presence or absence of radiation health effects. In particular, the schedule of decontamination needs reconsideration. The decontamination map is determined based on the results of airborne monitoring and the radiation dose calculated from readings taken at the monitoring posts at the initial period of the accident. The decontamination protocol should be reevaluated based on the individual doses of the people who desire to live in those areas.

0 comments Cited 34 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

The voice of the most vulnerable: lessons from the nuclear crisis in Fukushima, Japan

A Sugimoto, S Krull, S Nomura … (2012)

0 comments Cited 11 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Tenth Warren K. Sinclair keynote address-the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident and comprehensive health risk management.

Shunichi Yamashita (2014)

Just two years have passed since the Tokyo Electric Power Company-Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) accident, a multidimensional disaster that combined to destroy the local infrastructure on which the safety system depended and gave a serious impact to the world. Countermeasures including evacuation, sheltering, and control of the food chain were implemented in a timely manner by the Japanese government. However, there is a clear need for improvement, especially in the areas of nuclear safety and protection and also in the management of the radiation health risk during and even after the accident. To date there have been no acute radiation injuries. The radiation-related physical health consequences to the general public, including evacuees, are likely to be much lower than those arising from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident, because the radiation fallout and the subsequent environmental contamination were much more limited. However, the social, psychological, and economic impacts of the Fukushima NPP accident are expected to be considerable. Currently, continued monitoring and characterization of the levels of radioactivity in the environment and foods in Fukushima are vital for obtaining informed consent to the decisions on living in the areas already radiocontaminated and returning back to the evacuated areas once re-entry is permitted; it is also important to perform a realistic assessment of the radiation doses on the basis of measurements. We are currently implementing the official plans of the Fukushima Health Management Survey, which includes a basic survey for the estimation of the external doses that were received during the first 4 mo after the accident and four more detailed surveys (thyroid ultrasound examination, comprehensive health check-up, mental health and life-style survey, and survey of pregnant women and nursing mothers), with the aim to take care of the health of all of the residents of the Fukushima Prefecture for a long time. Introduction of the Sinclair Lecture (Video 2:01, http://links.lww.com/HP/A24).

0 comments Cited 11 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Akira Sakai: sakira@fmu.ac.jp

Tetsuya Ohira: teoohira@fmu.ac.jp

Mitsuaki Hosoya: mhosoya@fmu.ac.jp

Akira Ohtsuru: ohtsuru@fmu.ac.jp

Hiroaki Satoh: hiroaki@fmu.ac.jp

Yukihiko Kawasaki: kyuki@fmu.ac.jp

Hitoshi Suzuki: shitoshi@fmu.ac.jp

Atsushi Takahashi: junior@fmu.ac.jp

Gen Kobashi: genkoba@nirs.go.jp

Kotaro Ozasa: ozasa@rerf.or.jp

Seiji Yasumura: yasumura@fmu.ac.jp

Shunichi Yamashita: shun@nagasaki-u.ac.jp

Kenji Kamiya: kkamiya@hiroshima-u.ac.jp

Masafumi Abe: masafumi@fmu.ac.jp

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Public Health

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Public Health

Title: BMC Public Health

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1471-2458

Publication date (Electronic): 23 December 2014

Publication date Collection: 2014

Volume: 14

Electronic Location Identifier: 1318

Affiliations

[ ]Department of Radiation Life Sciences, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, 1 Hikarigaoka, Fukushima, 960-1295 Japan

[ ]Department of Epidemiology, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, Fukushima, Japan

[ ]Department of Pediatrics, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, Fukushima, Japan

[ ]Department of Radiation Health Management, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, Fukushima, Japan

[ ]Department of Nephrology, Hypertension, Diabetology, and Endocrinology, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, Fukushima, Japan

[ ]Department of Cardiology and Hematology, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, Fukushima, Japan

[ ]Department of Gastroenterology and Rheumatology, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, Fukushima, Japan

[ ]Department of Planning and Management, National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Chiba, Japan

[ ]Department of Epidemiology, Radiation Effects Research Foundation, Hiroshima, Japan

[ ]Department of Public Health, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, Fukushima, Japan

[ ]Radiation Medical Science Center for the Fukushima Health Management Survey, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, Fukushima, Japan

[ ]Japan and Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan

[ ]Department of Experimental Oncology, Research Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan

Article

Publisher ID: 7440

DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-14-1318

PMC ID: 4364647

PubMed ID: 25539683

SO-VID: bed887ac-075a-4188-a72d-c8421fd5ec2a

License:

This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

History

Date received : 27 May 2014

Date accepted : 15 December 2014

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health

Keywords: evacuee,polycythemia,fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant accident,lifestyle-related disease,the fukushima health management survey

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health

Keywords: evacuee, polycythemia, fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant accident, lifestyle-related disease, the fukushima health management survey

Life as an evacuee after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident is a cause of polycythemia: the Fukushima Health Management Survey

Read this article at

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Electronic supplementary material

Related collections

Global Health Next Generation Network

Most cited references 6

Measurements of individual radiation doses in residents living around the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

The voice of the most vulnerable: lessons from the nuclear crisis in Fukushima, Japan

Tenth Warren K. Sinclair keynote address-the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident and comprehensive health risk management.

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Article

History

Categories

Custom metadata

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 335

Cited by 14

Most referenced authors 32