• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.311-322
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• 2012

Objective: The effect of lead on blood pressure remains controversial in spite of the numerous studies which have been conducted in the recent years. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of exposure to lead on blood pressure among non-smokers. Methods: In this cross sectional study, 1416 male and female non-smokers were enrolled, aged 20 years or older, from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2008. Blood pressure, blood lead levels (BLLs), height, weight, and cotinine level were measured for all subjects. Results: Geometric mean BLLs of the participants was 2.20 ${\mu}g$/dl. BLLs were higher in the older, male, and lower education groups than the younger, female and higher education groups. After adjusting for age, sex, education and BMI through multiple regression analysis, a significant positive association between systolic blood pressure (p = 0.0357), diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.0111) and BLLs. Also, among the normal BMI group (18.5 kg/$m^2$ < BMI < 25 kg/$m^2$), we also found a significant positive association between diastolic blood pressure and BLLs (p = 0.0370). Conclusion: The present study showed that blood lead serves as a good predictor of blood pressure changes and that there was a statistically significant association between blood lead and blood pressure, especially diastolic blood pressure.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.26 no.1 s.41
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• pp.96-109
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• 1993

For the purposes of analyzing the distribution and the change in blood pressure according to age and determining the factors affecting the change in blood pressure, a follow-up study had been conducted for 6 years from 1986 to 1991 for 430 primary school children aged 6 years old in 1986 in Kangwha County, Korea. The mean blood pressure increased according to age. Specifically mean systolic blood pressure increased from 97.3 mmHg for male and 96.4mmHg for female (at 6 years of age) to 108.8mmHg fur male and 112.1mmHg for female (at 11 years of age). Mean diastolic blood pressure increased from 60.0mmHg for male and 61.8mmHg for female (at 6 years of age) to 72.9mmHg for male and 73.8mmHg for female (at 11 years of age). The average annual increase in blood pressure was 2.3mmHg (in systolic blood pressure) and 2.6 mmHg (in diastolic blood pressure) for male : and 3.1mmHg (in systolic blood pressure) and 2.4mmHg (in diastolic blood pressure) for female, respectively. To determine the factors affecting the change in blood pressure, the stepwise regression analysis was conducted. Children were divided into the three groups(low, middle, and upper) according to the level of systolic and diastolic blood pressure at the age of 6, and the regression analysis was performed in each group. For the change in systolic blood pressure, the changes in weight and skinfold thickness or initial skinfold thickness fer male, and the change in weight for female were selected as significant factors for children in middle and upper group. For the change of blood pressure in diastolic blood pressure, no variables was significant.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.336-343
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• 1997

The purpose of the present study was to address whether the in vivo noradrenergic neural activities in the locus coeruleus are related to the development of hypertension. Two groups of the animals were prepared, 1) young SHR and 2) age-matched normotensive control, WKY. At the age of 6 weeks, blood pressure and the releases of NE and DOPEG from the locus coeruleus in young SHR and WKY were measured by in vivo microdialysis at two different conditions; 1) normal and 2) elevated state of blood pressure by systemically injected phenylephrine. Basal releases of NE and OOPEG from the locus coeruleus were $0.415 \pm$0.089 pg/20 min and $1.311 \pm0.293$ pg/20 min in SHR and $0.204\pm0.078$ pg/20 min and $1.472\pm 0.365$ pg/20 min in WKY The basal release of NE of SHR was significantly greater than that of WKY. Phenylephrine treatment caused elevation of blood pressure in both SHR and WKY in dose-dependent manner. Following phenylephrine injection, the releases of NE and DOPEG from the locus coeruleus of SHR were significantly decreased, whereas there was no significant changes of NE in WKY. The results from the present study suggests that the noradrenergic nervous system in the locus coeruleus may contribute as one of the triggering factors for the expression of hypertension in young SHR.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.132-140
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• 2010

High sodium intake is one of the risk factors for the development of hypertension. According to 2007 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, sodium intake of Korean was three times higher than adequate intake (1.5 g/day) recommended by Korean Dietary Reference Intakes. High sodium intake is related to high threshold and preference of salty taste. And zinc status is known to affect taste acuity. The hypothesis of this study is that zinc status is associated with salty taste acuity, preference, sodium intake and blood pressure. The subjects included in this study were 50 men and 41 women aged 20-29 y who did not smoke and not take supplements or medications regularly. Dietary intake data for 3 days were collected by 24-h recall for 1 day and dietary record for 2-days. Salty taste acuity and preference were determined by sensory test. Fasting serum concentration of zinc, height, weight, body composition and blood pressure data were collected. Salt taste preference in high zinc intake group ($\geq$ estimated average requirement, EAR; men-8.1 mg/day, women-7 mg/day) was higher than that in low zinc intake group (< EAR). Salty taste preference was inversely correlated with serum zinc concentration in people with low concentration of serum zinc (${\leqq}\;81\;{\mu}g/dL$)(r = -0.3520, p < 0.05). Diastolic blood pressure was higher in high sodium intake group than in low sodium intake group (p < 0.05), positively correlated with salty taste preference (r = 0.3866, p < 0.05) in subjects with daily zinc intake below the EAR. We conclude that low zinc status may be related to high salty taste preference and high blood pressure in Korean young adults.

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.643-651
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• 2007

The various blood pressure simulators have been proposed to evaluate and improve the performance of the automatic sphygmomanometer. These have some problems such as the deviation of the actual blood pressure waveform, limitation in the blood pressure condition of the simulator, or difficulty in displaying the blood flow. An improved simulator using disturbance observer is proposed to supplement the current problems of the blood pressure simulator. The proposed simulator has an artificial arm model capable of feeding appropriate fluids that can generate the blood pressure waveform to evaluate the automatic sphygmomanometer. A controller was designed and thereafter, simulation was performed to control the output signal with respect to the reference input in the fluid dynamic model using the proposed proportional control valve. To minimize the external fluctuation of pressure applied to the artificial arm, a disturbance observer was designed on the plant. A hybrid controller combined with a proportional controller and feed-forward controller was fabricated after applying a disturbance observer to the control plant. Comparison of the simulations between the conventional proportional controller and the proposed hybrid controller indicated that even though the former showed good control performance without disturbance, it was affected by the disturbance signal induced by the cuff. The latter exhibited an excellent performance under both situations.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.181-185
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• 2004

Malignant tumor have hypoxic cell fraction, which makes radio-resistant and hypoxia in tumor is a result from the blood flow decrease caused by increase in blood flow resistance. Blood viscosity increase is major factor of increased blood flow resistance and it could be attributed to the decrease in blood deformability index. For the evaluation of the change of blood viscosity and blood deformability in oral squamous cell carcinoma, we perform the test of the change of those factors between the normal control group and oral squamous cell carcinoma cell patient group. Relative viscosity measured against distilled water was $5.25{\pm}0.14$ for normal control group, and $5.78{\pm}0.26$ for the SCC patient group and there was statistical significance between the groups. However, there was no significant difference between the groups in blood viscosity between the groups by tumor size (T1+T2 vs T3+T4). Also, there was no significant difference between the normal control group and SCC patient group in blood deformability index and between the groups by tumor size (T1+T2 vs T3+T4). Increase in blood viscosity was confirmed with this study and it can be postulated that modification blood viscosity might contribute to decrease of hypoxia fraction in oral squamous cell carcinoma, thus improve the effect of radiotherapy and it can be assumed that the main factor of blood viscosity increase is not decrease of blood deformability in oral squamous cell carcinoma.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.22 no.3 s.27
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• pp.303-312
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• 1989

To show the distribution and change of blood pressure according to age and to find factors affecting the level of blood pressure in primary school children, a follow-up study was conducted from 1986 to 1989 on 401 first grade children attending primary school in Kangwha County in 1986 and their parents. The blood pressure of the children was significantly increased according to age. The average annual increase was 1.8mmHg in systolic blood pressure and 2.5mmHg in diastolic blood pressure. The level of blood pressure did not show any significant difference in both sexes. Among children who were at or above the 80th percentile of blood pressure in the first grade, 35 and 30% of them have remained at the same level of systolic and diastolic blood pressure respectively in the fourth grade. But we could not find any significance in the tracking of blood pressure of children who were at or above the 90th percentile of blood pressure in the first grade. Weight and pulse rate were shown to be significant factors affecting systolic blood pressure in children of both sexes and mother's blood pressure and skinfold thickness were also affected systolic blood pressure in girls. The variables significantly affecting diastolic blood pressure were arm circumference and pulse rate for boys and height and pulse rate for girls.

• The Korean Journal of Blood Transfusion
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.162-168
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• 2012

Background: Potassium, the most common cation in the intracellular space, plays a critical role in our physiology. Potassium imbalance may cause life-threatening problems, ranging from general weakness to cardiac arrest due to ventricular fibrillation. For emergency physicians, detection of such derangement within a short period of time is of critical importance. In this study, we wanted to determine whether analysis of whole blood samples can be used as a screening tool for potassium imbalance by comparative analysis of whole blood and serum samples. Methods: Two samples were drawn from 227 patients. The whole blood sample was taken from the radial artery and contained in a commercially available arterial blood collection syringe with a lithium-heparin coating. The serum sample was contained in a commercially available vacuum bottle in a non-additive silicone coated tube and transported to the laboratory. The study population was divided into three groups, patients with normal whole blood potassium, patients with decreased whole blood potassium, and patients with elevated whole blood potassium. Potassium levels for each group were coupled with serum potassium levels and compared. Results: No significant difference in potassium values was observed between whole blood and serum samples (P<0.05). Strong associations were observed among the three groups (normal range, hypokalemia, and hyperkalemia group). Compared to the normal group (r=0.851), the hyperkalemia group showed a stronger association between variables (r=0.897), and the hypokalemia group showed a weaker association (r=0.760). Their correlation coefficients were highly significant (P<0.05). Conclusion: Our study illustrates that point-of-care testing using whole blood with whole blood can be a reliable screening tool when treating patients with suspicious potassium abnormality, especially in hyperkalemia patients.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Applied Pharmacology
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.107-107
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• 2003

The purpose of this study is to examine that the efflux transport system for choline from brain to blood is present at the blood-brain barrier (BBB) using brain efflux index (BEI) method. ［$^3$H］Choline was microinjected into parietal cortex area 2 (Par2) region of rat brain, and was eliminated from the brain with an apparent elimination half life of 45 min. The BBB efflux clearance of ［$^3$H］choline was 0.12 $m\ell$/min/g brain, which was calculated from the efflux rate constant (1.5${\times}$10$\^$-2/ min$\^$-1/) and the distribution volume in the brain slice (8.1 $m\ell$/g brain). This process was saturable and significantly inhibited by various organic cationic compounds including hemicholinium-3, tetraethylammonium chloride (TEA) and verapamil, by antioxidant, ${\alpha}$-phenyl-n-tert-butyl nitrone (PBN), and by Alzheimer's disease therapeutics, such as acetyl $\ell$-carnitine and tacrine. In conclusion, this finding is the first direct in vivo evidence that choline is transported from brain to the blood across the BBB via a carrier-mediated efflux transport process.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.33-39
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• 2002

Objective : The objective of this study is to measure the changes of regional cerebral blood flow(rCBF) and blood pressure(BP) in rats with the following injection. Methods : The measurement was continually monitored by laser-doppler flowmeter-Transonic Instrument, USA- and pressure tranducer(Grass, USA) in anesthetized adult Sprague-Dawley rats about for two hour to two hour and a half hours through the data acquisition system composed of Maclab and Macintosh computer. Result : This experiment with Samso-eum increased the changes of rCBF in rats, significantly, but did not change the blood pressure. The rCBF of Samso-eum decreased by pretreated propranolol, and was not changed by pretreated L-NNA and ODQ. Conclusion : It is considered that the dosage-dependent increase on rCBF is mediated by adrenegic ${\beta}$-receptor.