Allergy Asthma Immunol Res.  2013 Jan;5(1):16-25. 10.4168/aair.2013.5.1.16.

Diseases Concomitant With Asthma in Middle-Aged and Elderly Subjects in Korea: A Population-Based Study

• Park J
• Kim TB
• Joo H
• Lee JS
• Lee SD
• Oh YM

• KMID: 2167002
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4168/aair.2013.5.1.16

Abstract

PURPOSE
Asthma is prevalent in many countries. Few studies have investigated the association between asthma and concomitant diseases. We retrospectively analyzed the fourth Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey database, performed in 2008 using nationwide stratified random sampling to obtain a representative cohort of the Korean population.
METHODS
We evaluated the association between both self-reported ever-asthmatics and wheezers and concomitant diseases such as arthritis, hypertension, gastrointestinal (GI) ulcers, dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus, rhinitis, depression, stroke, and obesity in subjects aged > or =40 years. A multivariate analysis was performed to identify concomitant diseases independently associated with asthma, after adjustment for age, gender, income, cigarette smoking, and other chronic diseases.
RESULTS
Of the total of 4,445 subjects, 2,596 (58.4%) were female and the mean age was 58.3 years. Of the 4,445 subjects, 195 (4.4%) had been diagnosed with asthma at some point, and 444 (10%) were wheezers. Multivariate analysis showed that arthritis (odds ratio [OR] 1.74, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.26-2.42), rhinitis (OR 1.78, 95% CI 1.14-2.78), depression (OR 1.45, 95% CI 1.05-2.07), and obesity (OR 1.61, 95% CI 1.08-2.40) were significantly associated with self-reported ever-asthma, and arthritis (OR 1.50, 95% CI 1.19-1.909), hypertension (OR 1.34, 95% CI 1.07-1.67), GI ulcers (OR 1.48, 95% CI 1.05-2.08), rhinitis (OR 1.60, 95% CI 1.16-2.19), depression (OR 1.94, 95% CI 1.51-2.48), and obesity (OR 1.56, 95% CI 1.17-2.09) were significantly associated with wheezers.
CONCLUSIONS
These findings indicate that arthritis, rhinitis, depression, and obesity may be associated with both self-reported ever asthma and wheezers in the Korean population.

Keyword

Asthma; arthritis; rhinitis; depression; obesity

MeSH Terms

Aged
Arthritis
Asthma
Cohort Studies
Depression
Diabetes Mellitus
Dyslipidemias
Female
Humans
Hypertension
Multivariate Analysis
Nutrition Surveys
Obesity
Retrospective Studies
Rhinitis
Smoking
Stroke
Ulcer

Figure

• 

  Figure Odds ratios (ORs) of concomitant diseases for ever-asthma (left) and wheezer subjects (right). Data are shown as odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals derived from a fully adjusted logistic regression model including gender, age, income, cigarette smoking, and the other eight diseases. The OR of gender is for males compared to females. Ever-asthma was ascertained by the question, "Has a physician ever told you that you had asthma?" Wheezers were ascertained by the question, "Have you had wheezing or whistling in your chest at any time in the past 12 months?"Arthritis, stroke, GI ulcer, depression, and allergic rhinitis denote durative disease for 6 months or more after being diagnosed by a health professional. Hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and dyslipidemia denote the subjects on medication or meeting the criteria of diastolic blood pressure ≥90 mmHg, fasting blood glucose ≥126 mg/dL, and low density lipoprotein ≥130 mg/dL, respectively. Obesity denotes a body mass index of 27.5 kg/m2 or more. GI, gastrointestinal.

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