Abstract
Purpose： This study estimated the prevalence of smoking among male and female school employees. This study also correlated key indicators of health with the number of cigarettes consumed per day by the male smokers. The indicators of health included health behavior, blood pressure (mmHg), BMI (kg/m2), diabetes, total cholesterol, GOT, GPT and GTP. Methods： Subjects included 2,640 male and 2,747 female employees working at elementary, middle, and high schools who received a physical check-up at the Seoul School Health Center in 2002. Data was obtained from the physical examinations, questionnaires, and laboratory results. Results： 39.7% of males and 0.4% of females were current smokers. 60% of the male smokers consumed between 10 and 19 cigarettes per day, and39.6% of male smokers had been smoking between 10 and 19 years. Smokers who consumed more than one pack per day had a relatively higher BMI than the non-smokers (24.7 24.1, respectively). However, smokers had lower blood pressure than non-smokers. The mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure of current-smokers were 128.2 and 82.8, respectively, while the values among non-smokers were 129 and 84.5, respectively. The proportion of current smokers with severe obesity (over BMI 30) was 5.0%. This was considerably higher than the 1.3% of severely obese non-smokers. Current-smokers also had mean and abnormal rate of fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol, GOT, GPT, and GTP that were higherthan those of non-smokers. The frequency of red meat consumption, alcohol use, perceived incidents of stress were alsomore frequent in current-smokers than in non-smokers. Exercise frequency was also lower among smokers. In multiple regression after adjusting all possible confounding factors including age, BMI, diet, and drink, the parameter value of fasting blood glucose, cholesterol, GOT, GPT, and GTP increased relative to the level of cigarette consumption. Conclusion： Among school employees, health behavior, and general health status including BMI, total cholesterol, GOT, GPT, GTP, and fasting blood glucose were worse in smokers than in non-smoker.
