About the Authors

Hiroshi Yamamoto

Contributed equally to this work with: Hiroshi Yamamoto, Kazuhisa Maeda

Affiliation Department of Surgery, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga, Japan

Kazuhisa Maeda

Contributed equally to this work with: Hiroshi Yamamoto, Kazuhisa Maeda

maedakazu@aol.com

Affiliation Department of Complementary & Alternative Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan

Yoshitaka Uji

Affiliation Department of Surgery, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga, Japan

Hiroshi Tsuchihashi

Affiliation Department of Surgery, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga, Japan

Tsuyoshi Mori

Affiliation Department of Surgery, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga, Japan

Tomoharu Shimizu

Affiliation Department of Surgery, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga, Japan

Yoshihiro Endo

Affiliation Department of Surgery, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga, Japan

Aya Kadota

Affiliation Department of Health Science, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga, Japan

Katsuyuki Miura

Affiliation Department of Health Science, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga, Japan

Yusuke Koga

Affiliation Department of Complementary & Alternative Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan

Toshinori Ito

Affiliation Department of Complementary & Alternative Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan

Tohru Tani

Affiliation Department of Surgery, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga, Japan

Competing Interests

This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C), a grant of the Knowledge Cluster Initiative implemented by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT), and also, in part, by a grant from Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Developed the concept of ADN as a stress marker: HY K. Maeda. Management of patients: HY TT. Received research support from Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd: HY. Conceived and designed the experiments: HY K. Maeda TT. Performed the experiments: YU HT TM YE. Analyzed the data: HY AK K. Miura. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: YU HT TM TS HY AK K. Miura. Wrote the paper: HY K. Maeda YK TI.