• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.493-498
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• 2005

The safety assessment of Bifidobacterium longum SPM1205 isolated from healthy Koreans and this strain's inhibitory effects on fecal harmful enzymes of intestinal microflora were investigated. The overall safety of this strain was investigated during a feeding trial. Groups of SD rats were orally administered a test strain or commercial reference strain B. longum $1\times10^9\;CFU/kg$ body weight/day for four weeks. Throughout this time, their feed intake, water intake and live body weight were monitored. Fecal samples were periodically collected to test harmful enzyme activities of intestinal microflora. At the end of the four-week observation period, samples of blood, liver, spleen, kidney, and gut tissues were collected to determine for hematological parameters and histological differences. The results obtained in this experiment demonstrated that four weeks of consumption of this Bifidobacterium strain had no adverse effects on rat's general health status, blood biochemical parameters or histology. Therefore, it is likely to be safe for human use. Fecal harmful enzymes such as $\beta-glucosidase,\;\beta-glucuronidase$, tryptophanase and urease, were effectively inhibited during the administration of the B. longum SPM1205. These results suggested that this B. longum SPM 1205 could be used for humans as a probiotic strain.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.38-47
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• 2020

Purposes: The problem in the recent immigration policy and social policy changes for foreigners is that the preliminary analysis or research on the actual impact of the influx of foreigners has not been done enough in Korea yet.. This study is to examine the impact of the Korean health insurance finances on the influx of foreigners. Approach: This study analyzed the health insurance statistics for foreigners and overseas Koreans of the Health Insurance Corporation from 2013 to 2017. The data is the "Status of Health Insurance Premiums for Nationals, Foreigners, and Overseas Koreans from 2013 to 2017" submitted by the National Health Insurance Service to the Health and Welfare Committee during the 2018 National Audit Period. Findings: To summarize the analysis, first, the proportion of foreigners was only 1% of all subscribers (1.7% at work, 1.9% in regions) until 2017. Second, employees at work have a lower pay-to-pay ratio, and local subscribers have a higher pay-to-pay rate, regardless of nationality. Third, as immigrants are mostly concentrated in younger ages, they are healthy and use of hospitals is relatively low. Fourth, in terms of gender distribution, there are many women of childbearing age due to marriage immigration among foreign local subscribers, and more men use hospitals than workers who have a high proportion of males due to childbirth. In conclusion, the impact of immigration on health insurance finances is not large, and has a positive effect on finances. Practical Implications: If we simply consider the financial aspect, encouraging foreigners to subscribe to health insurance has a positive effect on finances. In particular, the more foreign workers are enrolled, the greater the financial gain. In particular, increasing the employment of foreign women through language education, vocational training, and employment support will help finance health insurance. One of the reasons foreign subscribers have a positive impact on health insurance finance is the low medical utilization rate. It can be said that young and healthy foreigners use fewer hospitals and clinics, but another aspect means that foreigners have difficulty using health insurance for various reasons. Therefore, various supports must be accompanied so that foreign subscribers can use medical services when necessary.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.274-278
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• 2011

The changes in the corpus callosum (CC) with age and gender remain largely subject to dispute, which might come from the different strategies for analyzing the size and shape of CC. We have investigated this issue by measuring some variables reflecting the spatial orientation of CC on magnetic resonance imaging in Koreans, which minimize individual variances in the brain. The subjects were composed of young adults in their twenties (51 male, 59 female) and elderly adults in their sixties and seventies (60 male, 71 female). The total area of CC, length and height of CC, the central angle and the four angles suggested by Oka et al. were measured. The whole area and the central angle of CC were not significantly affected by age and gender. The height and length of CC were significantly greater in elderly people. The angle connecting genu, upper notch of pons and splenium was significantly larger in the elderly group. Furthermore, all four angles were significantly different between male and female subjects. These results confirm that the spatial orientation of CC is influenced by age and gender.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.220-230
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• 1998

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for dietary studies of Koreans. One hundred and five food items for the Food frequency questionnaire were selected based on information of frequently consumed foods from National Nutrition Survey Reports and on raw data from a dietary survey on diabetic patients. Frequency of consumption was determined through nine categories ranging from more than three times a day to almost never to indicate how often the specified amount of each food item was consumed during the past month. Three portion sizes were given for each food item(small, medium or large) with respect to a stated medium portion. Seventy-three healthy women served for the validation study. They completed both the FFQ and a 3-day diet record. The FFQ estimate of mean nutrient intake was higher by 10-20% than that of the 3-days diet record and the Spearman correlation coefficients between the two methods ranged from 0.26 to 0.59 . The degree of agreement was from 36% to 38% when nutrients intake assessed by the FFQ and 3day diet record were classified within the same quintile. On the whole , the result of this study seemed to be in good agreement with other studies. Therefore the FFQ developed in this study is considered to be a reliable tool in assessing the dietary habits of Korean.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.245-256
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• 2002

This study was carried out to examine Koreans preference in mushrooms, their nutritional knowledge of mushrooms as a source of Vitamin D, and five characteristics of six dishes consisting of common dishes and mushroom dishes. The data were collected from 2,777 subjects in various age ranges by means of a survey questionnaire. Variables, such as age, gender, diet quality and the degree of interest in diet were significant factors considered in relation to preference of mushrooms. Adults ate mushrooms because of their healthfulness, but this attibute was not a factor among adolescent students. The level of nutritional knowledge was relatively low and the ratio of "do not know" responses was higher than the ratio of "yes" or "no" . Generally, housewives, elementary school children and those who were healthy, ate floods because of health consciousness, and those who preferred mushrooms had better dietary habits. The characteristics of mushroom dishes, both as main and side dishes, had much more correlation with the factors considered for the subjects than the common dishes and one dish meals, respectively. Dietary altitudes, such as mushroom preference, frequency of mushroom intake and level of nutritional knowledge, were strongly correlated with the characteristics of the six dishes. It has been shown that mushroom dishes were recognized as nutritional, rather than delicious.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 1993

It is known that human saliva includes various kinds of salivaru proteins that show genetic polymorphism. Withrespect to salivary protein polymorphism, this study was conducted on 160 healthy Koreans between the ages of 20 and 29 chosen randomly : their parotid slaiva was collected, freeze-dried, and horizontally electrophoresed over acid-urea starch gel. Aluminum lactate-lactic acid was also used as buffer solution. The gel was stained with amidoblack 10B/1% acetic acid solution, and then destained with 0.5M H2SO4 solution. Accordingly, the parotid middle-band protein(Pm) identified, and its phenotypes and gene frequency were obtained. The obtined results were as follows : 1. The phenotypes of parotid middle band protein(Pm) observed in parotid saliva of the 160 Koreans were Pm(+) in 91 people (56.9%) and Pm(-) in 69 people (43.1%) 2. The gene frequency of Pm+ was 0.343, and that of Pm-waw 0.657. 3. The gene frequency of parotid middle band protein (Pm) obtained from Korean's parotid saliva was midway between that of Japanese and Chinese.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.179-183
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• 2006

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterised neuropathologically by the accumulation of neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles as well as by cerebrovascular amyloid deposition and neuronal cell loss. Current advances have shown the apolipoproteinE-epsilon 4 (ApoE4) allele to be highly associated with late-onset familial and sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD) in Western populations. The association of ApoE allele frequencies and dementia remains unknown in populations from many countries. We recently initiated a project to examine ApoE frequencies in non-demented healthy Koreans. Genomic DNA in hair root from a thousand persons was collected and ApoE gene type was investigated with the methods of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism. A group of a thousand non-demented Koreans over the age of 40 years were found to be positive in 15.7% of the cases for ApoE4. AD and ApoE4 were closely related. ApoE epsilon 4 was a dangerous factor of AD and ApoE 4 allele made a contribution to the heterogenicity of AD.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.769-780
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to identify the differences in dietary consumption patterns according to the exercise level of Korean adults. The study subjects were the 7,370 Koreans aged 20 years and older of the 1998 Korean Health and Nutrition Survey. The dietary assessment was conducted by means of the 24 hour recall method. Data for individual exercise behavior were collected by interviews as part of the National Health Behavior Survey. Following the analysis of variances the Duncan＇s Multiple Range Test was used to test the differences in food and nutrient intakes among groups with different levels of exercise. Current exercise practices were reported by 22% of the male subjects and 15% of the female subjects. Unlike observations from the American and European studies, a greater amount of meat intake was observed more frequently among high exercises group than among middle and low exercisers in the case of the male subjects. This was reflected in the increasing levels of protein and fat intake in proportion to the exercise levels. However, the food and nutrient intake patterns of female exercisers were quite different from those of the males. The least intake of fatty foods was observed among the high exercisers. Energy intake from fat was the lowest among the high exercisers. These results may imply that the motivation to exercise was quite different between male and female Koreans. This dietary pattern may have a risk of undernution. Summerizing the results, whatever the motivation of the exercise, the Korean exercisers of both sexes had unhealthy dietary pattern. Therefore, nutritional education should be conducted to encourage the eating of a balanced diet along with exercise, among Koreans of both sexes, in order to promote a healthy lifestyle.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.79-84
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• 2004

Zinc intake and status of South Koreans from rural, urban and metropolitan areas were investigated. The dietary habits of 760 healthy male and female adult subjects with a mean age of 54 were assessed using a food frequency questionnaire and were verified using 24 h dietary recall. Daily Zn intakes for men and women were 7.4$\pm$5.4 mg and 7.0$\pm$5.4 mg, respectively, which were 62% and 70% of the Korean RDA. The phytate : zinc and phytate ${\times}$ calcium : zinc molar ratios were 38 and 398, respectively. Both the low intake of zinc and the high extremely phytate and phytate ${\times}$ calcium ratios with Zinc suggest that South Koreans may be at risk of zinc deficiency. Plasma zinc (86$\pm$61 $\mu\textrm{g}$/dL), urinary zinc (33$\pm$27 $\mu\textrm{g}$/dL) and plasma alkaline phosphatase (102$\pm$52 mU/mL) levels within the normal range did not however suggest marked Zinc deficiency in these subjects. However, conventional zinc biomarkers aye known to be unreliable for assessment of marginal zinc deficiency. Based on zinc intake alone, it is likely that at least a proportion of these subjects were marginally zinc deficient and the wider consumption of zinc rich, phytate deficient foods, particularly in rural areas, would be beneficial.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.638-643
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• 2005

As Korea has approached the aging society, older Koreans have become an important force in restaurant sales today. To succeed with this silver market, it is important for restaurant managers to know who they are and what factors influence older Koreans' eating-out decision making process. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the silver consumers' education level on eating-out decision making process. Data were collected from 178 older consumers above 55 years old and analyzed using the descriptive statistic analysis, MANOVA, and one-way ANOVA. The results showed that the elderly consumers' education level significantly influenced the decision making process in determining where to eat out. Significant differences were found in the Problem Recognition Step(Wilks' Lambda=0.817, F=2.991), Information Search Step(Wilks' Lambda=0828, F=2.218), Alternative Evaluation Step II(Wilks' Lambda=0.741, F=3.596), Purchase Decision Step(Wilks' Lambda=0.859, F=2.223), and the Post-Purchase Behavior(Wilks' Lambda=0.885, F=1.780). The higher education level was, the more directly involved in the eating out decision process. The elderly consumers with university education were likely to 'propose to eat out by themselves'(F=9.346), to obtain restaurant information from the 'printed materials'(F=7.452), to go to 'family restaurant'(F=9.057), 'Japanese restaurant'(F=8.7891) and 'fine dining restaurants'(F=3.936), and to directly express their emotion when they had complaints about restaurant service(F=3.206). In conclusion, older Koreans will become more healthy and wealthy which means the dining out activity will be an important part of their life to socialize with people. Therefore, food service operations should consider the elderly consumers' needs and expectation of restaurant services and actively position themselves for this new market segment.