Objectives: In Korea, dietitian licenses began to be issued in 1964, and they have been working to prevent diseases and promote people’s health in various fields according to the times. This study was conducted to compare differences in social perception of dietitian over time by collecting online unstructured data and analyzing the frequency and network structure of nutritionist-related keywords after the deployment of nutrition teachers began. Methods: Using ‘dietitian’ as a keyword, we collected data from NAVER’s web, blogs, and news provided by Textom (2024, The IMC) and refined the data. We investigated the frequency ranking of keywords related to dietitians for each period, revealed the network structure using UCINET6 (Freeman) and Netdraw, and clustered similar concepts among keywords through CONCOR (CONvergence of iterated CORrelations) analysis to cluster-related concepts. Results: Frequency analysis revealed that during the first period, keywords such as “School” and “Education” reflecting the institutionalization of nutrition teachers, were highly ranked. However, by the second period, these terms had dropped out of the top 10. Meanwhile, keywords related to healthcare, such as “Hospital”, consistently remained among the most prominent. In the second period, the rankings of the “License” and “University transfer” keywords increased significantly. Centrality analysis showed stronger connectivity between dietitians and keywords such as “Food”, “School”, “Examination”, and “Nutrition” in the second period compared to the first. CONCOR analysis further demonstrated that the “Major education” cluster of the first period was differentiated into the “Major education and qualification” and “professional competency certification process” clusters of the second period. In addition, the “Health and welfare” cluster of the first period was divided into the “Health and welfare regional service” clusters of the second period. Conclusion The results of this study will be used as basic data for identifying social perception and trends in the dietitian profession, further providing a scope for their improvement.

Objectives: Obesity rates are rapidly rising in Korea. Weight control is highly involved in obesity treatment. This study aimed to explore research trends related to weight control through keyword network analysis. By focusing on journals indexed in the Korea Citation Index (KCI), this study highlights trends specific to Korea, offering insights that reflect the country’s unique cultural and policy contexts in weight control research. Methods: This study collected keywords from weight control-related papers published in the KCI journal over the past 20 years. Keywords were cleaned through Textom (2024), and the relationships between key research issue frequency analysis, structural characteristics, and keywords were identified using Textom, UCINET6, and NetDraw. Results: Over the past 20 years, 40 to 50 studies related to weight control have been conducted each year. The Korean Journal of Community Nutrition had the largest number of published articles. Keyword frequency analysis showed that ‘obesity’ had the highest frequency. And the analysis of degree centrality and betweenness centrality, the keyword ‘obesity’ ranked the highest. CONCOR analysis identified four clusters: preventive health care, health management, physical health, and personal development. Conclusion The results of this study showed that weight control research reflecting the characteristics of the times has been steadily progressing in relation to the rapidly increasing obesity in Korea, and when developing policies or setting research directions related to weight loss in the future, research should be conducted in a prospective manner by subdividing it according to groups and interests.

Purpose: Food allergies in children are known to impact the quality of life for growing children as well as their parents. This study investigates the status of food allergy and its management among preschoolers, and evaluates the effect on parental burden. Methods: In May 2019, five kindergartens and daycare centers in Jeju area were randomly selected, and parents (n = 638) who had preschoolers younger than 6-year-old were surveyed using a questionnaire. A total of 387 participants were included in the final data analysis. Results: The percentage of children (aged 3 to 6 years old) who experienced food allergies was 16.8%; 44.6% had been diagnosed as having a food allergy by doctors. Food allergies were first experienced in more than two-thirds of the subjects when they were less than a year old. Egg and milk were the most frequent allergenic foods with some skin related symptoms. A mere 15.4% children suffering from food allergies were offered substitutes for their allergenic foods. Lastly, as compared to other parents, the parents of children who experienced food allergies had not only higher nutritional knowledge, but also heavier parental burden including emotional distress. Regardless of their nutritional knowledge, parents of children with food allergy expressed their willingness to attend nutrition education classes, if available in future. Conclusion For prevention of food allergies and proper nourishment of children with food allergies, there is a necessity to provide customized-nutritional education for the affected parents to help alleviate their parental burden, especially for reducing emotional distress.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Gelidium amansii (GA) contains plenty of agars and various biological substances, which make them a popular functional food to control body weight in previous studies. Unlike previous studies focused on agar in GA, objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of agar-free GA extract (AfGAE) on preventive and treatment models by using diets-induced obese (DIO) C57BL/6J mice. MATERIALS/METHODS: AfGAE were used to test their effects on the prevention (Exp-1) and treatment (Exp-2) against obesity after pilot study in DIO mice. The weight changes of the body and fat tissues and protein expression related to lipid metabolism and inflammation as well as plasma lipid profile and insulin were detected. RESULTS: Although AfGAE did not prevent long-term DIO, it did increase the levels of anti-inflammatory cytokine production and lipolysis protein. We further evaluated various doses of AfGAE in preventive and treatment models. As a result, our findings suggested that an AfGAE administration as a preventive model might be a better approach to achieve its anti-inflammatory and lipolysis-promoting effects in DIO mice. CONCLUSION: Although future studies to investigate the target materials such as polyphenols in AfGAE are required, the result suggests that GA without agar might be a therapeutic tool to improve health conditions related to inflammation.
Agar* ; Animals ; Body Weight ; Functional Food ; Inflammation ; Insulin ; Interleukin-10 ; Lipid Metabolism ; Lipolysis ; Mice ; Mice, Obese* ; Obesity ; Pilot Projects ; Plasma ; Polyphenols

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Seaweeds have been reported to have various health beneficial effects. In this study, we investigated the potential anti-obesity and anti-inflammatory effects of four types of domestic brown seaweeds in a high-fat diet-induced obese mouse model and bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDM). MATERIALS/METHODS: Male C57BL/6N mice were fed low-fat diet (LFD), high-fat diet (HFD) or HFD containing Undaria Pinnatifida, HFD containing Laminaria Japonica (LJ), HFD containing Sargassum Fulvellum, or HFD containing Hizikia Fusiforme (HF) for 16 weeks. RESULTS: Brown seaweed supplementation did not affect long-term HFD-associated changes in body weight or adiposity, although mice fed HFD + LJ or HFD + HF gained slightly less body weight compared with those fed HFD at the beginning of feeding. Despite being obese, mice fed HFD + LJ appeared to show improved insulin sensitivity compared to mice fed HFD. Consistently, we observed significantly reduced blood glucose concentrations in mice fed HFD + LJ compared with those of mice fed HFD. Although no significant differences in adipocyte size were detected among the HFD-fed groups, consumption of seaweeds decreased formation of HFD-induced crown-like structures in gonadal adipose tissue as well as plasma inflammatory cytokines. BMDM from mice fed HFDs with seaweeds showed differential regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1beta and IL-6 compared with BMDM from mice fed HFD by LPS stimulation. CONCLUSION: Although seaweed consumption did not prevent long-term HFD-induced obesity in C57BL/6N mice, it reduced insulin resistance (IR) and circulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Therefore, seaweeds may ameliorate systemic inflammation and IR in obesity partially due to inhibition of inflammatory signaling in adipose tissue cells as well as bone marrow-derived immune cells.
Adipocytes ; Adipose Tissue ; Adiposity ; Animals ; Blood Glucose ; Body Weight ; Cytokines ; Diet, Fat-Restricted ; Diet, High-Fat ; Gonads ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Insulin Resistance ; Interleukin-6 ; Laminaria ; Macrophages ; Male ; Mice ; Mice, Obese* ; Obesity ; Plasma ; Sargassum ; Seaweed ; Undaria

Pulmonary artery sarcomas (PAS) are rare malignant neoplasms. Right heart failure due to tumour location is the main cause of death in PAS patients. The hemodynamic influence of PAS may effect prognosis, but this has not been proven. We aimed to identify the clinical characteristics and prognostic factors of PAS in Korea, their association with pulmonary hypertension (PH). PAS patients treated at the Asan Medical Center between 2000 and 2014 were reviewed. We examined demographic characteristics, diagnostic and treatment modalities. Potential prognostic factors were evaluated by univariate and multivariate analysis. Twenty patients were diagnosed with PAS. Ten patients were male, the median age was 54 years (range, 33–75 years). The most common symptom observed was dyspnea (65%). The most common histologic type was spindle cell sarcoma (30%). Ten patients had a presumptive diagnosis of pulmonary embolism (PE) and received anticoagulation therapy. Seventeen patients underwent surgery, but only 5 patients had complete resection. Eleven patients received post-operative treatment (chemotherapy = 3, radiotherapy = 5, chemoradiotherapy = 3). PH was observed in 12 patients before treatment and in 6 patients after treatment. Overall median survival was 24 months. Post-treatment PH was associated with poor prognosis (HR 9.501, 95% CI 1.79–50.32; P = 0.008) while chemotherapy was negatively associated with mortality (HR 0.102, 95% CI 0.013–0.826; P = 0.032) in univariate analysis. Post-treatment PH was also associated with poor prognosis in multivariate analysis (HR 5.7, 95% CI 1.08–30.91; P = 0.041). PAS patients are frequently misdiagnosed with PE in Korea. Post-treatment PH is associated with a poor prognosis.
Cause of Death ; Chemoradiotherapy ; Chungcheongnam-do ; Diagnosis ; Drug Therapy ; Dyspnea ; Heart Failure ; Hemodynamics ; Humans ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Hypertension, Pulmonary ; Korea* ; Male ; Mortality ; Multivariate Analysis ; Prognosis ; Pulmonary Artery* ; Pulmonary Embolism ; Radiotherapy ; Sarcoma*

Cryptococcosis can occur in immunocompetent patients; in fact, it accounts for 20% of all cryptococcal infections. In immunocompetent patients, although clinical symptoms may not be obvious, cryptococcosis should be considered in the differential diagnosis for cancer and other diseases. We recently encountered a case of disseminated cryptococcosis involving the lung and prostate. A 71-year-old male patient was referred for evaluation of a large pleural effusion. He was a 40 pack-years ex-smoker, and showed no evidence of immunodeficiency. Chest computed tomography and positron emission tomography images suggested primary lung cancer with pleural metastases and prostate cancer. Tuberculous pleurisy was suspected due to a lymphocyte-dominant exudative pleural effusion and high level of adenosine deaminase. Prostate and bronchoscopic biopsies demonstrated chronic granulomatous inflammation, and periodic acid Schiff's and Grocott's methenamine silver staining confirmed cryptococcosis in both specimens. Antifungal therapy with fluconazole was started, and follow-up images showed complete resolution of the pleural effusion.
Adenosine Deaminase ; Aged ; Biopsy ; Cryptococcosis* ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Fluconazole ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Lung ; Lung Neoplasms* ; Male ; Methenamine ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Periodic Acid ; Pleural Effusion ; Positron-Emission Tomography ; Prostate ; Prostatic Neoplasms* ; Thorax ; Tuberculosis, Pleural

Comamonas testosteroni and Acinetobacter guillouiae are gram-negative bacilli of low virulence that are widely distributed in nature and normal flora. Despite their common occurrence in environments, they rarely cause infectious disease. We experienced a case of septic shock by C. testosterone and A. guillouiae, and isolated them by 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing method from the blood cultures of a previous healthy female during postoperative supportive care. This is the first case of septic shock required ventilator care and continuous renal replacement therapy due to these organisms in Korea.
Acinetobacter* ; Bacteremia ; Comamonas testosteroni* ; Comamonas* ; Communicable Diseases ; Female ; Humans ; Korea ; Renal Replacement Therapy ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; Shock, Septic* ; Testosterone ; Ventilators, Mechanical ; Virulence

Comamonas testosteroni and Acinetobacter guillouiae are gram-negative bacilli of low virulence that are widely distributed in nature and normal flora. Despite their common occurrence in environments, they rarely cause infectious disease. We experienced a case of septic shock by C. testosterone and A. guillouiae, and isolated them by 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing method from the blood cultures of a previous healthy female during postoperative supportive care. This is the first case of septic shock required ventilator care and continuous renal replacement therapy due to these organisms in Korea.
Acinetobacter ; Bacteremia ; Comamonas testosteroni ; Comamonas ; Communicable Diseases ; Female ; Humans ; Korea ; Renal Replacement Therapy ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; Shock, Septic ; Testosterone ; Ventilators, Mechanical ; Virulence

BACKGROUND: The American Geriatric Society released the 2012 updated version of the Beers criteria with intentions to improve care of older adults by reducing their exposure to potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs). However, there have been no reports on the prevalence of PIMs prescriptions according to the 2012 version of Beers criteria in South Korea. METHODS: This is a retrospective study using medical records and code analysis of each PIM to survey the prevalence of PIMs prescriptions and common PIMs used for elderly patients. Locating the PIMs was carried out in all outpatients who visited Asan Medical Center from May 2012 to April 2013. Selection of PIMs was based on the 2012 updated version of the Beers criteria. RESULTS: A total of 652,192 outpatients older than 65 years visited our medical center during the study period and were analyzed. Among them, 33,810 (5.19%) received at least one PIM and 125,498 cases of PIM prescriptions were written. The percentage of the patients who received at least two kinds of PIMs concurrently was 33.14%. Common PIMs were tramadol (24.15%), clonazepam(11.51%), ibuprofen (10.02%), megesterol (9.80%), and amitriptyline (9.51%). CONCLUSION: Our study investigated the prevalence of PIMs prescription for Korean elderly outpatients in a single tertiary medical center. Compared to previous reports using the older version of the Beers criteria, our study showed a change in the priority of common PIMs.
Adult ; Aged ; Amitriptyline ; Beer ; Humans ; Ibuprofen ; Inappropriate Prescribing ; Intention ; Medical Records ; Outpatients ; Polypharmacy ; Prescriptions ; Prevalence ; Republic of Korea ; Retrospective Studies ; Tramadol