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• The Ear, Nose, and
  Throat Department,
  Saiseikai Central Hospital

Meniere's disease is a disease that causes dizziness, ear ringing, and defective hearing due to the swelling of the internal ear called the labyrinth.

The labyrinth consists of three semicircular canals, which provide the sense of balance, and the cochlea, an organ that converts sound waves when it travels from the eardrum to the brain.

The inside of the labyrinth is filled with lymph fluid, the amount of which is kept constant by repeating the cycle of producing and absorbing the fluid every day. However, if the fluid is poorly absorbed for unknown reasons, it builds up and this consequently produces the swelling. This prevents the three semicircular canals and the cochlea from functioning normally and thus affects the sense of balance or hearing. This is Meniere's disease.

Stress and lack of sleep are considered the major causes of the disease. Because blood vessels in the inner ear are very thin, it is thought that stress affects the constriction of the blood circulation, and this leads to the swelling.

Since blood circulation to the neck is likely to be impaired by sensitivity to cold temperatures and stiff shoulders, care should be taken.

Meticulous people have a tendency to develop Meniere's disease. Also, those who are busy and under great stress are more likely to be afflicted by the disease, such as those who are diligent workers and often work overtime and women suffering from domestic problems.

• Dizziness
• Ringing in the ears
• Defective hearing

Yutaka Imamura first experienced dizziness when he was twenty years old, the year that he became a boat racer. At the time, he had a habit of taking an early evening nap. It was around this time, after he took a nap for about an hour as usual, that he felt dizzy when he woke up to take a bath.

"I didn't think it was serious. I took it lightly, thinking I might be tired."

Sometimes he participated in a race feeling dizzy. When he was sailing a boat at a speed of about eighty kilometers, the landscape ahead started swaying. He couldn't see ahead very well and thought that his boat might have overturned …

Yutaka Imamura was born in Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1961. In 1981, he made his debut as a boat racer, attracting mass attention by coming in first in his first race. Ten months after his debut, he participated in the Grade1 championship. In 1984, he won the Special Grade (SG) championship for the first time. He established a record by accomplishing the winning of the SG championship only three years after his debut.
In 2004, the total amount of prize money that he had earned exceeded two billion yen. In 2007, he achieved a total of 2,000 victories.
He is called "the prince of boat race" because his brilliant race plan and his talented full-speed turn fascinated spectators.
He is 162 centimeters tall. His weight is 49 kg.