Toyama prefecture is facing the Japan Sea and has been leading industrial prefecture.
Around 1912, the cadmium poisoning known to be Itai-itai disease was discovered within the residents in the basin of the Jintzu River. The cadmium pollution was originated from waste water of Zinc mine and people chronically received cadmium through consumption of rice.
The disease was called after patients who suffered from severe pain saying “ouch-ouch” (in Japanese itai-itai). The clinical symptom of the disease is to cause osteomalacia and osteoporosis, which are medical conditions that bones became soften and fragile. Patients were mostly women who had experiences of giving a birth.