Keys to the Interpretation of Clinical Data —Approaches to Understanding Underlying Pathophysiology and Effective Utilization of Pathophysiological Information in Clinical Practice—

Health screening/Ningen Dock loses much of its value if the examinees simply undergo health-checks without reflecting on the results (for healthcare providers, if they simply provide health examinations without paying attention to the results). Routine examinations, not necessarily expensive ones, can provide a great deal of information that—depending on how the data is interpreted—can be meaningful to living a long healthy life. From acute to chronic diseases, including lifestyle-related diseases, front-line health care personnel require specific approaches to understanding the underlying pathophysiology and effectively utilizing this pathophysiological information in their clinical practice. Reference intervals are, in general, defined as intervals between the 2.5 th and 97.5 th percentiles of the reference distribution. When a clinical value is within the reference interval, the result is usually rated as “A”. From a rating alone, an examinee may be moved from joy to sorrow, or a healthcare provider may consider an individual to be disease-free. It is important to closely observe the changes across ages when we interpret laboratory data. Regardless of the rating, healthcare providers must pay attention to the transitional change from the previous results. It is necessary to evaluate whether the value is reaching to the reference limit or whether it is rapidly worsening. In addition, we should be careful not to cling onto just one parameter. Disease risks are often evaluated using multiple factors, and we should not consider the results to reflect a disease-free status just because a parameter is within the reference interval. With advancing age, the parameters associated with lifestyle-related diseases such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes, and hyperuricemia tend to be rated as “needing close observation” or “needing re-evaluation”. On the