• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.452-458
• /
• 1999

Objectives: The authors conducted the study to evaluate bias when potentially diseased subjects were included in cohort members while analyzing risk factors of chronic liver diseases. Methods: Total of 14,529 subjects were followed up for the incidence of liver diseases from January 1993 to June 1997. We have used databases of insurance company with medical records, cancer registry, and death certificate data to identify 102 incident cases. The cohort members were classified into potentially diseased group(n=2,217) when they were HBsAg positive, serum GPT levels higher than 40 units, or had or has liver diseases in baseline surveys. Cox's model were used for potentially diseased group, other members, and total subjects, respectively. Results: The risk factors profiles were similar for total and potentially diseased subjects: HBsAg positivity, history of acute liver disease, and recent quittance of smoking or drinking increased the risk. while intake of pork and coffee decreased it. For the potentially diseased, obesity showed marginally significant protective effect. Analysis of subjects excluding the potentially diseased showed distinct profiles: obesity increased the risk, while quitting smoking or drinking had no association. For these intake of raw liver or processed fish or soybean paste stew increased risk; HBsAg positivity, higher levels of liver enzymes and history of acute liver diseases increased the risk. Conclusions: The results suggested the potential bias in risk ratio estimates when potentially diseased subjects were included in cohort study on chronic liver diseases, especially for lifestyles possibly modified after disease onset. The analytic strategy excluding potentially diseased subjects was considered appropriate for identifying risk factors for chronic liver diseases.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.17 no.12
• /
• pp.407-414
• /
• 2016

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of supplementation of dietary betaine on nutrient digestibility and physiological responses in finishing pigs. A total of twelve pigs with a body weight of $80.1{\pm}3.7kg$ were individually caged, and randomly assigned to one of the two experimental diets containing 0 (control) or 5 g/kg (treatment) of the betaine in a $2{\times}2$ Latin square design. The experimental period was 14 days-7 days adaptation and 7 days trial period-per phase. All data for the difference between control and treatment groups were statistically analyzed by student's t-test. Dry matter and crude protein digestibility in the treatment group were significantly improved by 1% and 1.3%, respectively, as compared with those in the control (p<0.05). The apparent absorption of dietary energy was increased from 82.3% to 83.7% by dietary betaine supplementation. Thus, the retention of energy was also significantly increased to above 6% in the treatment group compared with the control group (control 4,057 vs treatment 4,314 kcal; p<0.01). The physiological parameters indicating serum biochemical contents and stress-, immune-, and inflammatory- responses were not changed by the supplementation of dietary betaine. In conclusion, dietary betaine improves the nutrient digestibility without any negative effects in terms of physiology in finishing pigs. It suggests that the supplementation of dietary betaine may increase the productivity through the improvement of weight gain and feeding efficiency.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
• /
• v.40 no.5
• /
• pp.257-262
• /
• 2006

Purpose: The standard protocol using large volume of oral contrast media may cause gastrointestinal discomfort and contrast-related artifacts in PET/CT. The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of low dose oral contrast in $^{18}F-FDG$ PET/CT. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the whole-body PET/CT images in a total of 435 patients. About 200 ml of oval contrast agent (barium sulfate) was administered immediately before injection of $^{18}F-FDG$. The FDG uptake of intestines was analyzed by visual and semi- quantitative method on transaxial, coronal and saggital planes. Results: Seventy (16%, 113 sites) of 435 images showed high FDG uptake (peak SUV > 4); 50 (74%, 84 sites) with diffuse and 20 (15%, 29 sites) with focal uptake. The most commonly delivered site of oral contrast media was small bowel (n=27, 39%). On PET/CT images, FDG uptake coexisted with oral contrast media in 26 patients (54%, 38 sites) with diffuse pattern and 9 (45%, 9 sites) with focal pattern, and by sites, those were 38 (45%) and 9 (31%), respectively. In small bowel regions, the proportion of coexistence reached as high as 61% (29/47 sites). A visual analysis of available non-attenuation corrected PET images of 27 matched regions revealed no contrast-related artifact. Conclusion: We concluded that the application of low dose contrast media could be helpful in the evaluation of abdominal uptake in the FDG PET/CT image.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
• /
• v.47 no.4
• /
• pp.221-228
• /
• 2014

Purpose: Citron seed oil (CSO) has been reported to have high antioxidant activity. However, the composition and other biologically activities of CSO have not been reported. In this study, we confirmed the fatty acid composition of CSO, which may be beneficial to vascular disease and obesity. Methods: We investigated the oil composition of CSO using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis, and cytotoxicity was confirmed by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay. Nitric oxide (NO) production in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) was measured using Griess reagent, and lipid accumulation and leptin secretion in 3T3-L1 cells were measured by Oil-Red O staining and commercial ELISA kit, respectively. Results: GC-MS analysis indicated that CSO contains several components, including linoleic acid, oleic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid, linolenic acid, palmitoleic acid, and arachidic acid. In physiological activity analysis, CSO did not induce cytotoxic effects in HUVECs and 3T3-L1 cells. Further, CSO significantly induced nitric oxide and leptin secretion as well as inhibited lipid accumulation. Conclusion: CSO increased NO release, inhibited lipid accumulation, and induced leptin secretion, suggesting it may be useful for the management of vessels and weight gain. Although further studies are required to investigate the safety and mechanism of action of CSO, our results show that the composition and physiological activity of CSO are sufficient for its use as functional edible oil.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
• /
• v.43 no.5
• /
• pp.459-467
• /
• 2009

Purpose: The maximum likelihood-expectation maximization (ML-EM) is the statistical reconstruction algorithm derived from probabilistic model of the emission and detection processes. Although the ML-EM has many advantages in accuracy and utility, the use of the ML-EM is limited due to the computational burden of iterating processing on a CPU (central processing unit). In this study, we developed a parallel computing technique on GPU (graphic processing unit) for ML-EM algorithm. Materials and Methods: Using Geforce 9800 GTX+ graphic card and CUDA (compute unified device architecture) the projection and backprojection in ML-EM algorithm were parallelized by NVIDIA's technology. The time delay on computations for projection, errors between measured and estimated data and backprojection in an iteration were measured. Total time included the latency in data transmission between RAM and GPU memory. Results: The total computation time of the CPU- and GPU-based ML-EM with 32 iterations were 3.83 and 0.26 see, respectively. In this case, the computing speed was improved about 15 times on GPU. When the number of iterations increased into 1024, the CPU- and GPU-based computing took totally 18 min and 8 see, respectively. The improvement was about 135 times and was caused by delay on CPU-based computing after certain iterations. On the other hand, the GPU-based computation provided very small variation on time delay per iteration due to use of shared memory. Conclusion: The GPU-based parallel computation for ML-EM improved significantly the computing speed and stability. The developed GPU-based ML-EM algorithm could be easily modified for some other imaging geometries.

• Restorative Dentistry and Endodontics
• /
• v.31 no.5
• /
• pp.344-351
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the thermal expansion characteristics of injectable ther-moplasticized gutta-perchas and a Resilon. The materials investigated are Obtura gutta-percha, Diadent gutta-percha, E&Q Gutta-percha Bar and Epiphany (Resilon). The temperature at the heating chamber orifice of an Obtura II syringe and the extruded gutta-percha from the tip of both 23- and 20-gauge needle was determined using a Digital thermometer. A cylindrical ceramic mold was fabricated for thermal expansion test, which was 27 mm long, with an internal bore diameter of 3 mm and an outer diameter of 10 mm. The mold was filled with each experimental material and barrel ends were closed with two ceramic plunger. The samples in ceramic molds were heated in a dilatometer over the temperature range from $25^{\circ}C$ to $75^{\circ}C$. From the change of specimen length as a function of temperature, the coefficients of thermal expansion were deter-mined. There was no statistical difference between four materials in the thermal expansion in the range from $35^{\circ}C$ to $55^{\circ}C$ (p > 0.05). However, Obtura Gutta-percha showed smaller thermal expansion than Diadent and Metadent ones from $35^{\circ}C$ to $75^{\circ}C$ (p < 0.05). The thermal expansion of Epiphany was similar to those of the other gutta-percha groups.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
• /
• v.31 no.1 s.49
• /
• pp.17-23
• /
• 2005

We had previously reported that Selina (selina-4(14), 7(11)-dien-8-one) was isolated from methanol extract of Afractylodes rhizome and has strong whitening activity in B16 melanoma cells. In this report, we demonstrated its action mechanism in melan-a cells, non-tumorigenic melanocytes. We also investigated the clinical efficacy of cosmetic preparation containing Selina. Selina reduced the melanin synthesis of Melan-a cells by $50\%$ at a concentration of $10 {\mu}g/mL$ without any apparent cytotoxicity. We also found that the treatment of cells with Selina decreased tyrosinase activity by $60\%$ at a concentration of $10 {\mu}g/mL$ but Selina was not a direct inhibitor of tyrosinase activities. To elucidate the action mechanism of Selina, we investigated the changes in mRNA and protein level of tyrosinase, TRP-1 and TRP-2 using RT-PCR and western blotting, respectively. As a result, the mRNA and protein level of tyrosinase were markedly reduced at $10 {\mu}g/mL$ of Selina without any effect on TRP-1 and TRP-2. These results suggest that Selina exerts its whitening effect mainly through regulating expression of tyrosinase. A 7 week-clinical trial using formulation containing $0.2\%$ selina-4(14), 7(11)-dien-8-one with 20 volunteers resulted in statistically significant whitening effect (p < 0.05), without any adverse effect. Based on these results, Selina (selina-4(14), 7(11)-dien-8-one) can be s useful and safe ingredient for the cleanness and brightness of skin.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
• /
• v.39 no.4
• /
• pp.252-256
• /
• 2005

Purpose: Thyroglobulin (Tg) is a valuable and sensitive tool as a marker for diagnosis and follow-up for several thyroid disorders, especially, in the follow-up of patients with differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). Often, clinical decisions rely entirely on the serum Tg concentration. But the Tg assay is one of the most challenging laboratory measurements to perform accurately owing to antithyroglobulin antibody (Anti-Tg). In this study, we have compared the degree of Anti-Tg effects on the measurement of Tg between availale Tg measuring kits. Materials and Methods: Measurement of Tg levels for standard Tg solution was performed with two different kits commercially available (A/B kits) using immunoradiometric assay technique either with absence or presence of three different concentrations of Anti-Tg. Measurement of Tg for patient's serum was also performed with the same kits. Patient's serum samples were prepared with mixtures of a serum containing high Tg levels and a serum containg high Anti-Tg concentrations. Results: In the measurements of standard Tg solution, presence of Anti-Tg resulted in falsely lower Tg level by both A and B kits. Degree of Tg underestimation by h kit was more prominent than B kit. The degree of underestimation by B kit was trivial therefore clinically insignificant, but statistically significant. Addition of Anti-Tg to patient serum resulted in falsely lower Tg levels with only A kit. Conclusion: Tg level could be underestimated in the presence of anti-Tg. Anti-Tg effect on Tg measurement was variable according to assay kit used. Therefore, accuracy test must be performed for individual Tg-assay kit.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.118-122
• /
• 2005

Immu-Forte (Dong-Ahm Bio's. Corp., Korea) was evaluated fir its effectiveness as a nonspecific immunostimulator in mice. The effects of Immu-Forte were determined by analysis of cytokines using ELISh and phenotype of leukocyte subpopulations using monoclonal antibodies specific to mouse leukocyte differentiation antigens and flow cytometry. CD4 T cells, CD8 T cells, macrophages, IL-12 and IFN-r in Immu-Forte EX-treated middle dose group increased in 3 months posttreatment and were significantly higher (p<0.05) than that of control at 3 months posttreatment. All T cells, all B cells, macrophages, IL-2, IL-4 and IL-12 in Immu-Forte EX-treated low dose uoup increased in 3 months posttreatment and were significantly higher (p<0.05) than that of control at 3 months posttreatment. In the Immu-Forte soy-treated group, CD4 T cells, IL-2, IL-4 and IL-12 were significantly higher in high dose-treated group, and CD 4 T cell, macrophages, IL-2, IL-4 and IL-12 were significantly higher in middle dose-treated group, and all T cell, IL-2, IL-4 and IL-12 were significantly higher in low dose-treated group. In the Itnmu-Forte A-treated group, macrophages, m cells and IL-12 in high dose-treated group and all T cells, macrophages, NK cells, IL-2, IL-4 and IL-12 in middle dose-treated group and NK cells in low dose-treated group were significantly higher (p<0.05) than that of control at 3 months posttreatment. In the Immu-Forte F-treated Group, all B cells, IL-4 and IL-12 in high dose-treated group and all T cells, aBl B cells, CD 4 T cells, CD8 T cells, macrophage, IL-2, IL-4, IL-12 and IFN-r in middle dose-treated group and NK cells and IL-12 in low dose-treated group were significantly higher (p<0.05) than that of control at 3 months posttreatment. In conclusion, the study has demonstrated that Immu-Forte had an immunostimulatory effect on mice through proliferation and activation of mouse immune cells.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
• /
• v.33 no.8
• /
• pp.1294-1301
• /
• 2004

Soy foods are a unique dietary source of isoflavones, which have effects relevant to prostate cancer prevention. The present study determines the effects of a short-term isoflavone supplement on serum PSA (prostate specific antigen), lipid profile, antioxidant status, and immune system in prostate cancer patients. Ten prostate cancer patients were supplemented daily with 150 mg of isoflavone for 2 months. Blood samples were collected baseline and 2 month after for analysis of PSA, serum lipid profiles, total antioxidant status (TAS), grade of DNA damage in lymphocytes, IL-6, VEGF and TNF -$\alpha$. After 2 month isoflavone supplementation, increased significantly a total of estimated urinary isoflavone excretion and did not change PSA. Serum lipid profiles showed significant change in serum total cholesterol level (p=0.007). However, there was no significant change in HDL- and LDL-cholesterol levels. TAS was increased but not significant after isoflavone supplementation. Tail moment (TM) was decreased and especially tail length (TL) was decreased significantly (p=0.043). IL-6 level was decreased but VEGF level and TNF -$\alpha$ level were increased. The results of the present study led to the conclusion that the isoflavone dosage (150 mg) in supplement had positive effects on the serum total cholesterol level and DNA damage.