Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of premenstrual syndrome in elite female athletes and the associated factors. Methods: We surveyed elite female athletes in the National Training Center about their experiences of premenstrual syndrome. Premenstrual syndrome was diagnosed using the premenstrual symptoms screening tool. The MannWhitney test was applied to determine the association of premenstrual syndrome with differences in age, training time, and body mass index; and the chi-squared test was performed to investigate the association of premenstrual syndrome with differences in alcohol and coffee intake, diet for weight loss, stress fracture, and menstrual regularity. Results: Of the 124 athletes, 18 (14.5%) met the criteria for the diagnosis of premenstrual syndrome. These athletes complained of symptoms such as fatigue/lack of energy (18, 100%), anger/irritability (14, 77.8%), joint/muscle pain (10, 55.6%). There was no significant difference in menarche age, training time, or body mass index between the premenstrual syndrome and non-premenstrual syndrome groups. There was also no significant difference in alcohol or coffee intake, diet for weight, stress fracture, or menstrual regularity between the two groups. The athletes with premenstrual syndrome felt that premenstrual symptoms interfered with their performance, but few of them visited the doctor. Conclusion Premenstrual syndrome athletes felt that their performance was hampered because their symptoms were not adequately managed. However, none of the factors we investigated showed any association with premenstrual syndrome. Hence more research and proactive management of the premenstrual symptoms of female athletes is recommended.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate the experience of the upper respiratory infection of the elite winter sports athletes and its effect on training and competition. METHODS: We conducted survey on elite athletes preparing for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games. The general characteristics, training and competition loss due to upper respiratory infection were analyzed by descriptive statistics. Multiple regression analysis was performed to find out the factors that influence on training loss due to upper respiratory infection. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant and data were analyzed using SPSS ver. 24.0. RESULTS: A total 65 players answered the questionnaire. Sixteen players (24.7%) reported that they got an upper respiratory infection more than three times a year. The month mainly affected by upper respiratory infection was September to November. Main symptom of upper respiratory infection was rhinorrhea mostly, followed by sore throat, cough, sputum. Six players (9.2%) answered that they were excluded from training more than three times due to upper respiratory infection for 1 year. Seven players (10.7%) answered that they were excluded from competition one time due to upper respiratory infection for 1 year. The factors that influence on training loss due to upper respiratory syndrome were the numbers of getting upper respiratory infection for 1 year and age. CONCLUSION: Elite winter athletes are vulnerable to upper respiratory and it has a bad effect on training and competition. So we need to take care of elite athletes' illness like upper respiratory infection.
Athletes ; Common Cold ; Cough ; Humans ; Pharyngitis ; Sports Medicine ; Sports ; Sputum

Purpose: Wrestlers have a lot of direct skin-to-skin contact between wrestlers during matches, and many studies show that wrestlers are vulnerable to the spread of skin infections. However, there have been few studies on skin infections in Korean wrestlers. The purpose of this study was to compare the characteristics of skin diseases in wrestlers and other athletes. Methods: Athletes who visited for skin diseases in the Department of Family Medicine in the Jincheon National Training Center in 2018 were investigated. We calculated the duration of skin disease per training period (DSD/TP) as the number of visits×7 days×1,000/official training days. Athletes with a DSD/TP above the median value or equal to were defined as the high DSD/TP group, and the others were defined as the low DSD/TP group. A chi-square test was used to compare the odds ratio [OR] for these groups about infectious and noninfectious skin diseases. Results: Thirty wrestlers and 89 other sports players visited the infirmary with skin diseases. The probability of belonging to the high DSD/TP group was significantly higher when the wrestlers visited for skin infections than the other athletes (OR, 7.714; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.699–22.048). However, there was no significant difference in noninfectious skin diseases between wrestling and other sports (OR, 0.569; 95% CI, 0.246–1.320). Conclusion This is the first study that shows Korean national wrestlers with skin diseases receive more treatment for infectious skin diseases than other sports. This study can provide important information on the prevention of wrestlers for skin infections.

Background and Objectives: MYC, also known as an oncogenic reprogramming factor, is a multifunctional transcription factor that maintains induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Although MYC is frequently upregulated in various cancers and is correlated with a poor prognosis, MYC is downregulated and correlated with a good prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma. MYC and two other MYC family genes, MYCN and MYCL, have similar structures and could contribute to tumorigenic conversion both in vitro and in vivo. Methods: and Results: We systematically investigated whether MYC family genes act as prognostic factors in various human cancers. We first evaluated alterations in the expression of MYC family genes in various cancers using the Oncomine and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and their mutation and copy number alterations using the TCGA database with cBioPortal. Then, we investigated the association between the expression of MYC family genes and the prognosis of cancer patients using various prognosis databases. Multivariate analysis also confirmed that co-expression of MYC/MYCL/MYCN was significantly associated with the prognosis of lung, gastric, liver, and breast cancers. Conclusions Taken together, our results demonstrate that the MYC family can function not only as an oncogene but also as a tumor suppressor gene in various cancers, which could be used to develop a novel approach to cancer treatment.