To examine the association of diabetes mellitus and early age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in Korean adults 50 years and older. Methods: This study included 3008 participants aged 50 to 87 years. Early AMD was assessed from retinal photographs based on a modified Wisconsin AMD grading system. Diabetes mellitus was defined as a fasting glucose level of 126 mg/dL or greater or the use of antidiabetic medications. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between diabetes mellitus and early AMD. Results: There were 88 subjects with early AMD and 315 subjects with diabetes mellitus. After adjusting for age, sex, current smoking, obesity, and hypertension, significant association was found between diabetes mellitus and early AMD. Subjects with diabetes mellitus were more likely to have early AMD (odds ratio, 1.87; 95% confidence interval, 1.07-3.28) than were those without diabetes mellitus. Conclusion: There is a relationship between diabetes mellitus and early AMD in Korean adults 50 years and older. The underlying biological processes remain to be determined.

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Overall, the findings of this meta-analysis do not support the hypothesis that there is a link between HT use and lung cancer risk. Our findings should be evaluated in further prospective cohort studies.

This study was to evaluate the effect of additional brief counseling by a primary care physician on lifestyle modification of examinees after a periodic health examination. 1,000 participants of the 2007 Korean national health screening program were asked to note any variation in their health behavior after participating in the screening program. The degree of comprehensive motivation for lifestyle modification was assessed in terms of stages of health behavior change. We calculated odds ratio of positive change (enhanced stage of change) with multiple logistic regression analysis and age-adjusted proportion of positive changers. Of 989 respondents, 486 and 503 received the basic and additional programs, respectively. Additional group were more likely to be positive changer than basic group (adjusted OR 1.78; 95% CI 1.19-2.65), and this was more prominent in older age group (adjusted OR 2.38, 95% CI 1.23-4.58). The age-adjusted proportions of positive changers were 22.7% (95% CI, 17.9-28.3) and 36.2% (95% CI, 30.4-42.4) in the basic and additional groups, respectively (P < 0.001). The additional consultation led to improvements in the stage of health behavior change after the health examination. Thus, such a consultation should be considered when designing a health-screening program.

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