OBJECTIVE: Mitophagy is known to contribute towards progression of Parkinson's disease. Korean red ginseng (KRG) is a widely used medicinal herb in East Asia, and recent studies have reported that KRG prevents 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium ion (MPP METHODS: SH-SY5Y cells were incubated with KRG for 24 h, and subsequently exposed to MPP RESULTS: MPP CONCLUSION KRG effectively prevents MPP
1-Methyl-4-phenylpyridinium/toxicity* ; Apoptosis ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Mitochondria ; Mitophagy ; Panax ; Reactive Oxygen Species

Background: Unmet healthcare needs have many advantages for measuring inequalities in healthcare use. However, the existing indicator is difficult to capture the reality of unmet healthcare needs sufficiently and is not quite appropriate in comparing regional inequality. The purpose of this study is to critically analyze the utilization of the unmet healthcare need indicator for regional healthcare inequalities research. Methods: We used the level of healthcare accessibility and healthcare need to categorize the regions that are known to cause differences in healthcare utilization between regions and verified how existing unmet healthcare need indicator is distributed at the regional level. Results: Four types of regions were classified according to the high and low levels of healthcare needs and accessibility. The hypothesis about the regional type expected to have the highest unmet healthcare need was not proved. The hypothesis about the lowest expected regional type was proved, but the difference in the average rate of unmet healthcare needs among regional types was not significant. The standard deviation of the rate of unmet healthcare needs among regions within the same type was also higher than the overall regional variation, which also disproved the whole frame of hypothesis. Conclusion Failure to prove the hypothesis means the gap between the supposed meaning of the indicator and the reality. In order to understand the current state of healthcare utilization of people in various regions of Korea and to resolve inequality, fundamental research on the in-depth structure and mechanisms of healthcare utilization is needed.

Background: The fatality rate of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) varies among countries owing to demographics, patient comorbidities, surge capacity of healthcare systems, and the quality of medical care. We assessed the clinical outcomes of patients with COVID-19 during the first wave of the epidemic in Korea. Methods: Using a modified World Health Organization clinical record form, we obtained clinical data for 3,060 patients with COVID-19 treated at 55 hospitals in Korea. Disease severity scores were defined as: 1) no limitation of daily activities; 2) limitation of daily activities but no need for supplemental oxygen; 3) supplemental oxygen via nasal cannula; 4) supplemental oxygen via facial mask; 5) non-invasive mechanical ventilation; 6) invasive mechanical ventilation; 7) multi-organ failure or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation therapy; and 8) death. Recovery was defined as a severity score of 1 or 2, or discharge and release from isolation. Results: The median age of the patients was 43 years of age; 43.6% were male. The median time from illness onset to admission was 5 days. Of the patients with a disease severity score of 3–4 on admission, 65 (71.5%) of the 91 patients recovered, and 7 (7.7%) died due to illness by day 28. Of the patients with disease severity scores of 5–7, 7 (19.5%) of the 36 patients recovered, and 8 (22.2%) died due to illness by day 28. None of the 1,324 patients who were < 50 years of age died; in contrast, the fatality rate due to illness by day 28 was 0.5% (2/375), 0.9% (2/215), 5.8% (6/104), and 14.0% (7/50) for the patients aged 50–59, 60–69, 70–79, and ≥ 80 years of age, respectively. Conclusion In Korea, almost all patients of < 50 years of age with COVID-19 recovered without supplemental oxygen. In patients of ≥ 50 years of age, the fatality rate increased with age, reaching 14% in patients of ≥ 80 years of age.

The traditional boundaries between public and private sectors has been blurred, and questions raised regarding how publicness could be conceptualized. The empirical study on the concept of publicness can reveal greatly diversified views on publicness, and help to reduce confusion over publicness. For the content analysis, 750 news articles of 8 national Korean newspapers were retrieved from the Korea Integrated News Database System. The articles were coded by the inductive category for the topic of the paragraph, the concept related to publicness, and the overall tone toward publicness. Publicness was addressed in a number of different issues, and diverse and specific statuses or actions were associated with the realization of publicness. The most frequent concept was “government,” which represented the main agent of healthcare provision and the owner of institutions for “the vulnerable.” Issues of industrialization of healthcare/healthcare industry and reform of the national healthcare system mentioned publicness in a normative sense, which laid stress on “not-for-profit” service and the right of “universal access” to service for publicness. Articles of health/disease information or global health regarded “the population/public” as the main targets or beneficiaries of healthcare services. Occasionally, publicness was not related to specific concepts, being used unclearly or as a routine. The fulfillment of the specific actions or status may lead to the enhancement of publicness. However, publicness itself could not be reduced to the specific concepts suggested. The use of publicness in healthcare delivered only its normative sense without substantive meaning.
Delivery of Health Care* ; Global Health ; Korea ; Periodicals* ; Private Sector

BACKGROUND: To understand causes of abnormal reaction for the urinalysis, we analyze the interfering substances of clinical urine samples. We focused the effect of urinary vitamin C and fluorescein sodium to the urine chemistry especially glucose, hemoglobin, and leukocyte esterase. METHODS: Incidence of urinary vitamin C was determined for patients and people underwent a medical check–up. We decided dipstick results of glucose, hemoglobin, and leukocyte esterase as false negative based on urine sediment and serum glucose results. Dipstick urinalysis was tested by URiSCAN Pro III with URiSCAN 11 strip (YD Diagnostics, Korea). Urine sediments tests were performed by manual microscopic analysis or Sysmex UF–1000i (Sysmex Co., Japan). RESULTS: The incidence of vitamin C was 20.4% for all subjects. The positive rate of the medical check-up group (34.6%) was higher than others. When vitamin C was detected in clinical urine samples, 42.3%, 10.6%, and 8.2% were defined as false negative for glucose, hemoglobin, and leukocyte esterase dipstick tests, respectively. Fluorescein sodium also interfered on the results of hemoglobin and leukocyte esterase of the dipstick reagents. CONCLUSIONS: Vitamin C was frequently found in the clinical urine samples, and its incidence was higher in the people who underwent medical check-up. The urinary vitamin C and fluorescein sodium can cause interferences in urine dipstick results. Thus, it is expected that present study will give useful information to predict false negative rates of urine dipstick tests by vitamin C and fluorescein sodium.
Ascorbic Acid ; Blood Glucose ; Chemistry ; Fluorescein ; Glucose ; Humans ; Incidence ; Indicators and Reagents ; Leukocytes ; Urinalysis*

OBJECTIVES: To assess the current public participation in-local health policy and its implications through the analysis of policy networks in health center programs. METHODS: We examined the decision-making process in sub-health center installations and the implementation process in metabolic syndrome management program cases in two districts ('gu's) of Seoul. Participants of the policy network were selected by the snowballing method and completed self-administered questionnaires. Actors, the interactions among actors, and the characteristics of the network were analyzed by Netminer. RESULTS: The results showed that the public is not yet actively participating in the local public health policy processes of decision-making and implementation. In the decision-making process, most of the network actors were in the public sector, while the private sector was a minor actor and participated in only a limited number of issues after the major decisions were made. In the implementation process, the program was led by the health center, while other actors participated passively. CONCLUSIONS: Public participation in Korean public health policy is not yet well activated. Preliminary discussions with various stakeholders, including civil society, are needed before making important local public health policy decisions. In addition, efforts to include local institutions and residents in the implementation process with the public officials are necessary to improve the situation.
Community Networks ; *Consumer Participation ; Decision Making ; *Health Policy ; Health Services Needs and Demand ; Humans ; Metabolic Syndrome X/prevention & control ; Program Development ; Questionnaires

OBJECTIVES: We examined the association between social expenditures of the local government and the mortality level in Korea, 2004 to 2010. METHODS: We used social expenditure data of 230 local governments during 2004 to 2010 from the Social Expenditure Database prepared by the Korean Institute for Health and Social Affairs. Fixed effect panel data regression analysis was adopted to look for associations between social expenditures and age-standardized mortality and the premature death index. RESULTS: Social expenditures of local governments per capita was not significantly associated with standardized mortality but was associated with the premature death index (decline of 1.0 [for males] and 0.5 [for females] for each expenditure of 100 000 Korean won, i.e., approximately 100 US dollar). As an index of the voluntary effort of local governments, the self-managed project ratio was associated with a decline in the standardized mortality in females (decline of 0.4 for each increase of 1%). The share of health care was not significant. CONCLUSIONS: There were associations between social expenditures of the local government and the mortality level in Korea. In particular, social expenditures per capita were significantly associated with a decline in premature death. However, the voluntary efforts of local governments were not significantly related to the decline in premature death.
Databases, Factual ; Female ; Financing, Government/*economics ; Health Expenditures/*statistics & numerical data ; Humans ; Local Government ; Male ; Mortality/*trends ; Mortality, Premature/*trends ; Regression Analysis ; Republic of Korea

This study was performed to investigate the effects of very low calorie diet (VLCD) using meal replacements that contain the wild grass extracts based on Samul-tang ingredients on psychological factors and quality of life in the obese women (BMI > or = 25 kg/m2) for four weeks. Seventy five women (20 < or = age < 26) participated in this experiment. Subjects were randomly classified three groups: 1) General diet group (GD group, n = 27) consumed 3 regular meals within 600 kcal/day 2) Meal replacements group (MR group, n = 27) consumed 1 regular meal and 2 meal replacements within 600 kcal/day 3) Herbal Meal replacements group (HMR group, n = 27) consumed 1 regular meal and 2 meal replacements within 600 kcal/day. Physical factors (weight, BMI, fat(%)) of the HMR group significantly decreased more than those of GD and MR groups. Moreover, binge eating habit and environmental factors (surrounding support, emotional reaction, expression of opinion) of the HMR group significantly decreased more than those of GD and MR groups. Psychological factor and quality of life were no significant differences among three groups during the experimental period, because both were significantly decreased in all groups after 4 weeks. Therefore, very low calorie diet using meal replacements that contain the wild grass extracts based on Samul-tang ingredients for 4 weeks was effective on improvement of psychological factor and quality of life as well as weight reduction in the obese premenopausal women.
Bulimia ; Caloric Restriction* ; Diet ; Female ; Humans ; Meals* ; Poaceae ; Psychology* ; Quality of Life* ; Weight Loss

This study was performed to investigate the effects of very low calorie diet (VLCD) using newly meal replacements that contain the wild grass extracts based on Samul-tang ingredients on weight reduction and health in the obese adult women (BMI > or = 25 kg/m2) for four weeks. Seventy five women participated in this experiment. Subjects were randomly classified three groups: 1) General Diet group (GD group, n = 25) consumed 3 regular meals within 600 kcal/day, 2) Meal replacements group (MR group, n = 25) consumed 1 regular meal and 2 meal replacements within 600 kcal/ day, 3) Herbal Meal replacements group (HMR group, n = 25) consumed 1 regular meal and 2 meal replacements within 600 kcal/day. Anthropometric measurements, body composition, biochemical measurements and body symptoms were assessed before (the initial) and after (the 4th week) the study. Anthropometry measurements such as weight, waist and hip circumference, and BMI and body composition such as body fat percent, fat mass significantly decreased in all groups after diet intervention. Anthropometric measurements and body composition of the HMR group significantly more than those of GD and MR groups. Serum Total cholesterol was significantly decreased in all groups. However, there was no significant difference among three groups during the experimental period. HMR group had significantly less felt a pain than GD and MR groups in body symptoms such as anemia, powerlessness, vomiting, constipation and dryness of skin during the experimental period. Therefore, very low calorie diet (VLCD) using meal replacements that contain the wild grass extracts based on Samul-tang ingredients was very effective on weight reduction and health in the obese adult women.
Adipose Tissue ; Adult* ; Anemia ; Anthropometry ; Body Composition ; Caloric Restriction* ; Cholesterol ; Constipation ; Diet ; Female ; Hip ; Humans ; Meals* ; Poaceae ; Skin ; Vomiting ; Weight Loss*

A functional ability and adequate nutritional status are the major determinants of health status. Self-rated health (SRH) is a worldwide method to assess health status and it is recognized as a predictor of morbidity and mortality in the elderly. This study was designed to evaluate the functional ability and nutritional risk according to SRH in the elderly. Four hundred nine free-living elderly people (118 male, 291 female), aged > or = 65 years were interviewed by trained interviewers using structured questionnaires including demographic information, SRH, anthropometric measurements, functional ability, general health status, and nutritional risk. SRH was divided into three status such as "Good", "Moderate" and "Poor" status. And all the data were analyzed by oneway ANOVA , spearman correlation, and x(2) analysis using SPSS 9.0 version at p < 0.05. Of all the subjects, 48.9% perceived their health status as "poor", and their functional abilities (activities of daily living, instrumental activities of daily living) were more impaired than their counterparts' ("good" and "moderate"). Poor self-rated health was also related to: a higher prevalence of illnesses (p < 0.001) especially in hypertension, arthritis. Self-rated health was significantly related to food security (p < 0.001), food enjoyment (p < 0.001),and nutritional knowledge (p = 0.013). Also NSI checklist total score was the highest in "poor" health status (p < 0.001). Better self-rated health was related to better food security, and better food enjoyment. However, smoking, alcoholic intake, exercise, eating behaviors, and demographic characteristics were not significantly different among the three SRH status. SRH was closely related to chronic diseases, functional ability, and nutritional risk in the elderly. Therefore, public health strategies for the elderly should be focused on the elderly who are "poor" in SRH, to improve nutritional status and functional ability, and to reduce risk factors of chronic diseases.
Aged* ; Alcoholics ; Arthritis ; Checklist ; Chronic Disease ; Feeding Behavior ; Food Supply ; Gyeonggi-do* ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Male ; Mortality ; Nutritional Status ; Prevalence ; Public Health ; Risk Factors ; Seoul* ; Smoke ; Smoking ; Surveys and Questionnaires