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There needs to be an amendment to the Korean version of the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) with regards to the recent change in percent alcohol by volume (ABV) Korean liquor. This study was performed to suggest a cutoff value, reliability and validity of AUDIT-Korean revised version (AUDIT-KR), which reflect the change of the ABV of Korean alcohol.
The subjects were 435 peoples (210 males and 225 females), who visited the Chungnam National University Hospital for a comprehensive medical examination. The respondents completed the AUDIT-KR. At-risk drinking and alcohol use disorders had been evaluated by diagnostic interview. The Cronbach's alpha value, the receiver operating characteristic curve, the appropriate cutoff value, sensitivity and specificity of the AUDIT-KR were evaluated.
There were 190 at-risk drinkers (111 males and 79 females), and 66 people with alcohol use disorders (48 males and 18 females). The cutoff value of the AUDIT-KR for at-risk drinking was 3 points (sensitivity 93.69% and specificity 78.79%) for males and 3 points (sensitivity 92.40% and specificity 78.08%) for females. The cutoff value for alcohol use disorders was 10 points (sensitivity 100.00% and specificity 89.51%) for males and 8 points (sensitivity 100.00% and specificity 93.71%) for females. Cronbach's alpha of the AUDIT-KR was 0.885.
The above results suggest that the AUDIT-KR shows a high reliability and validity in identifying at-risk drinking and alcohol use disorders.
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Although Asian people are known to have lower bone mass than that of Caucasians, little is known about coffee-associated bone health in Asian. This study aimed to assess the relationship between coffee consumption and bone mineral density (BMD) in Korean premenopausal women.
Data were obtained from the Fourth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2008-2009. The study population consisted of 1,761 Korean premenopausal women (mean age 36 years) who were measured for lumbar spine and femoral neck BMD and who completed a standardized questionnaire about coffee intake frequency. We excluded the participants who took hormone replacement therapy or medication for osteoporosis. The cross-sectional relationship between coffee consumption and impaired bone health (osteopenia or osteoporosis) was investigated by bone densitometry.
Coffee consumption showed no significant association with BMD of either femoral neck or lumbar spine, independent of other factors. The adjusted odds ratios for BMD for those who consumed once in a day, twice a day and three times a day were 0.94 (0.70-1.26), 0.93 (0.67-1.28), and 1.02 (0.69-1.50), respectively (P for trend = 0.927).
This study does not support the idea that coffee is a risk factor for impaired bone health in Korean premenopausal women.
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In the 1990s the primary focus of medicine was shifted to disease prevention. Accordingly, it became the responsibility of primary-care physicians to educate and counsel the general population not only on disease prevention specifically but health promotion generally as well. Moreover, it was, and is still today, considered important that physicians provide positive examples of health-promotion behaviors to patients. The purpose of this study was to investigate physicians' health-promotion behaviors and to identify the factors that influence them.
We conducted a postal and e-mail survey of the 371 members of the Physician Association of Cheonan City between May 16th and June 25th, 2011. The questionnaire consisted of 18 items, including questions relating to sociodemographic factors, screening tests for adult diseases and cancer, and health habits.
There were 127 respondents. The gender breakdown was 112 men (88.2%) and 15 women (11.8%), and the mean age was 47.8 years. Fifty-nine (46.4%) were family physicians or interns, and 68 (53.6%) were surgeons. Twenty-six percent (26%) were smokers, and 74.8% were drinkers; 53.5% did exercise; 37% had chronic diseases; 44.9% took periodic cancer screening tests, and 72.4% took periodic screening tests for adult diseases.
It was found that general characteristics and other health-promotion behaviors of physicians do not affect physicians' practice of undergoing periodic health examination.
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Previous studies have shown that self-reports tend to underestimate smoking status, especially among women in Korea. We therefore assessed the characteristics of Korean women smokers who falsely described themselves as non-smokers.
The subjects were 4,135 adult women aged ≥19 years who participated in the 2008 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Of these, 3,151 subjects answered questions about their smoking status on self-reported questionnaires and underwent assays of urinary cotinine concentration. Subgroups of false respondents (n = 131) and true respondents (n = 198) regarding smoking were determined by comparing their responses on questionnaires with their urinary cotinine levels.
Among adult Korean women, the self-reported smoking rate was 7.4% (95% confidence interval [CI], 6.4% to 8.4%); however, using urinary cotinine >100 ng/mL as a marker of smoking, the smoking rate was 11.8% (95% CI, 10.5% to 13.3%). In multivariate analysis, after adjusting for type of household, family income, and suicidal ideation, the odds ratios (ORs) of false respondents were 3.49 (95% CI, 1.41 to 8.63) for college-educated women and 2.47 (95% CI, 1.22 to 5.01) for women with high school education, relative to women with elementary school education. Married women with living spouses (OR, 2.80; 95% CI, 1.33 to 5.90) were more likely to respond falsely than unmarried women. Women who reported trying to reduce weight within 1 year (OR, 2.70; 95% CI, 1.47 to 4.93) and those who reported being less stressed (OR, 1.82; 95% CI, 1.08 to 3.07) were more likely to be false respondents.
The smoking rate determined using urinary cotinine concentration was higher than the self-reported rate among Korean women. Among smokers, those who were more educated, married, living with a husband, trying to reduce weight, and less stressed tended to describe themselves falsely as non-smokers.
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Lung age, calculated from sex, forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), and height, was developed to illustrate premature changes to the lungs and could be used to motivate smoking cessation. However, this method has not been tested in association with smoking in Korea. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of lung age with smoking and other factors in Korean males.
We reviewed the records of 1,100 healthy men who visited a health promotion center at Ewha Womans University Medical Center from January 2008 to June 2009. Lung age was calculated from FEV1 and normal predictive values of spirometry according to age in the Korean population. The difference between lung age and chronological age was evaluated in relation to smoking status, weight, body mass index, waist, muscle mass, fat mass, and exercise.
The age difference was significantly higher in current smokers than in non-smokers (12.47 ± 19.90 vs. 7.30 ± 19.52, P < 0.001). Additionally, the age difference was positively correlated with life time pack-year (β = 0.223; P < 0.001) and fat mass (β = 0.462; P < 0.001). Lung age increased 1 year for 4.48 pack-year increase or for 2.16% increase in fat mass.
We found a significant relationship between lung age and both smoking status and fat mass in healthy Korean males. Lung age may be a useful tool for motivating cessation of cigarette smoking and management of risk factors related to obesity.
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