Background:It is widely known that the harmful effects of fine dust can cause various diseases. Research on the correlation between fine dust and health has been mainly focused on lung and cardiovascular diseases. By contrast, the effects of air pollution on the central nervous system (CNS) are not broadly recognized.Findings:Air pollution can cause diverse neurological disorders as the result of inflammation of the nervous system, oxidative stress, activation of microglial cells, protein condensation, and cerebral vascular-barrier disorders, but uncertainty remains concerning the biological mechanisms by which air pollution produces neurological disease. Neuronal cell damage caused by fine dust, especially in fetuses and infants, can cause permanent brain damage or lead to neurological disease in adulthood.Conclusion:It is necessary to study the air pollution–CNS disease connection with particular care and commitment. Moreover, the epidemiological and experimental study of the association between exposure to air pollution and CNS damage is critical to public health and quality of life. Here, we summarize the correlations between fine dust exposure and neurological disorders reported so far and make suggestions on the direction future research should take.

Hypertension and diabetes share common risk factors and frequently co-occur. Although high blood pressure (BP) was reported as a significant predictor of type 2 diabetes, little is known about this association in Korea. This study investigated the relationship of prehypertension and hypertension with type 2 diabetes in 7150 middle-aged Koreans, as well as the effect of BP control on diabetes development over 8 years. At 8 years, 1049 (14.7%) of the 7150 participants had newly developed diabetes, including 11.2, 16.7 and 21.5% of baseline normotensive, prehypertensive and hypertensive subjects, respectively. The overall incidence rate of diabetes was 22.3 events per 1000 person-years. Subjects with baseline prehypertension (hazard ratio (HR), 1.27; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.09–1.48) and hypertension (HR 1.51; 95% CI, 1.29–1.76) were at higher risk of diabetes than normotensive subjects after controlling for potential confounders (P-value for trend <0.001). These associations persisted even when subjects were stratified by baseline glucose status, sex and body mass index (BMI). The risk of diabetes was significantly higher in subjects who had normal BP at baseline and progressed to prehypertention or hypertension at 8 years (HR, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.20–1.83) than those with controlled BP, but these associations were not observed in subjects with baseline prehypertension and hypertension. These findings showed that prehypertension and hypertension are significantly associated with the development of diabetes, independent of baseline glucose status, sex and BMI. Active BP control reduced incident diabetes only in normotensive individuals, suggesting the need for early BP management.

Obesity is associated with diabetes mellitus, hypertension, dyslipidemia and increased cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Anthropometric indices, such body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), were evaluated as predictors of the presence of CVD risk factors in Korean adults. The data were obtained from the Third Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES III, 2005). The study contained a nationally representative sample of Korean adults (2,327 men, 3,102 women) aged 20 years or older. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for WHtR was higher than that for WC or BMI with respect to diabetes mellitus and hypertension in both men and women, whereas WC was a better predictor for low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in men. The WHtR cut-off value to predict diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and dyslipidemia was approximately 0.50 in men and 0.51 in women. The WC cut-offs varied from 81.6 to 85.2 cm in men and from 78.1 to 81.9 cm in women. The optimal BMI cut-off point varied from 23.0 to 24.7 kg/m(2) in both men and women. WC or WHtR may be a better predictor of CVD risk factors than BMI in Korean adults.

Although over 30 common genetic susceptibility loci have been identified to be independently associated with coronary artery disease (CAD) risk through genome-wide association studies (GWAS), genetic risk variants reported to date explain only a small fraction of heritability. To identify novel susceptibility variants for CAD and confirm those previously identified in European population, GWAS and a replication study were performed in the Koreans and Japanese. In the discovery stage, we genotyped 2123 cases and 3591 controls with 521 786 SNPs using the Affymetrix SNP Array 6.0 chips in Korean. In the replication, direct genotyping was performed using 3052 cases and 4976 controls from the KItaNagoya Genome study of Japan with 14 selected SNPs. To maximize the coverage of the genome, imputation was performed based on 1000 Genome JPT+CHB and 5.1 million SNPs were retained. CAD association was replicated for three GWAS-identified loci (1p13.3/SORT1 (rs599839), 9p21.3/CDKN2A/2B (rs4977574), and 11q22.3/ PDGFD (rs974819)) in Koreans. From GWAS and a replication, SNP rs3782889 showed a strong association (combined P=3.95 × 10⁻¹⁴), although the association of SNP rs3782889 doesn’t remain statistically significant after adjusting for SNP rs11066015 (proxy SNP with BRAP (r²=1)). But new possible CAD-associated variant was observed for rs9508025 (FLT1), even though its statistical significance did marginally reach at the genome-wide a significance level (combined P=6.07 × 10⁻⁷). This study shows that three CAD susceptibility loci, which were previously identified in European can be directly replicated in Koreans and also provides additional evidences implicating suggestive loci as risk variants for CAD in East Asian.

Background: Shift work has been hypothesized as a risk factor for obesity. In this study, we investigated the association between current shift work and body mass index (BMI) among female nurses in Korea. The relationship between duration of shift work and BMI of the participants was also evaluated. Methods: This cross-sectional survey evaluated participants in the Korean Nurses’ Survey, conducted from October to December 2011, using web-based self-administered questionnaires. A total of 9,989 nurses were included among 10,000 who registered on the survey web site (5,287 shift workers and 4,702 non-shift workers). Current shift workers were divided into tertiles of shift work duration (0.08–3.00 years, n = 1,732; 3.08–6.75 years, n = 1,731; and 6.83–38.00 years, n = 1,686). The BMI thresholds of overweight and obesity were ≥23 kg/m² and ≥25 kg/m², respectively. Data were analyzed using SPSS software. Results: Mean participant age was 33.2 ± 8.6 years and the mean BMI was 20.9 ± 2.5 kg/m². There were statistically significant differences in current smoking status, regular drinking habit, dietary habits, regular exercise, sleep problems and self-perceived health status according to duration of shift work. The overall prevalence of overweight/obesity (18.6%) and obesity (7.4%) increased significantly as shift work duration increased from the lowest to highest tertile (P for trend <0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed no association between current shift work and BMI. However, after adjusting for potential confounders, the participants with the longest duration of shift work were 1.63 (95% CI, 1.22–2.17) times more likely to be overweight or obese than those with the shortest duration. There was a significant positive association between obesity and shift work duration in the unadjusted analysis; however, it was attenuated and no longer significant in the multivariate model. Conclusions: The duration of shift work was positively associated with prevalence of overweight/obesity in nurses in Korea. Although these findings need to be confirmed in prospective studies, they suggest that special attention should be paid to female nurses with a long duration of shift work.