Several epidemiological studies have demonstrated that genetic and environmental factors contribute to the development of allergic diseases. However, there is limited information on these factors in the Korean population. This study investigated the importance of genetic and environmental factors in allergic diseases, such as allergic rhinitis, asthma, allergic conjunctivitis, or atopic dermatitis, by comparing the disease incidence in Korean adult monozygotic and dizygotic twins. This cross-sectional study utilized data from 1296 twin pairs, including 1052 monozygotic and 244 dizygotic twins, aged over 20 years, from the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study (2005–2014). The study utilized binomial and multinomial logistic regression models to compute odds ratios of disease concordance. The concordance rate (92%) of the presence or absence of atopic dermatitis in monozygotic twins was slightly higher than that in dizygotic twins (90.2%), which only had a borderline significance (p = 0.090). The concordance rates of other allergic diseases within monozygotic twins were lower compared to dizygotic twins (asthma, 94.3% vs. 95.1%; allergic rhinitis, 77.5% vs. 78.7%; allergic conjunctivitis, 90.6% vs. 91.8%), of which the differences were not statistically significant. Monozygotic twins had a higher proportion of cases in which both siblings had allergic diseases than dizygotic twins (asthma, 1.1% vs. 0.0%; allergic rhinitis, 6.7% vs. 3.3%; atopic dermatitis, 2.9% vs. 0.0%; allergic conjunctivitis, 1.5% vs. 0.0%), of which the differences were also not statistically significant. In conclusion, our results appear to indicate the relative importance of environmental factors over genetic factor in the development of allergic diseases in Korean adult monozygotic twins.
To date, no clear conclusion on the relationships of gout with the occurrence of typical neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD), has been reached. This study aimed to determine whether the patients with gout are at a lower or higher probability of developing AD or PD than those without gout. Longitudinal follow-up data of a representative sample of Korean adults were assessed. 18,079 individuals diagnosed with gout between 2003 and 2015 were enrolled in the gout group. The comparison group comprised 72,316 demographics-matched individuals not diagnosed with gout. Longitudinal associations of gout with AD or PD were estimated using Cox proportional hazard regression adjusting for potential confounders. The adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of AD and PD in the gout group were 1.01 and 1.16 times higher than controls, but these differences were not statistically significant (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.92–1.12 and 95% CI = 0.97–1.38, respectively). Although there was no significant association in the entire sample, AD and PD probabilities in patients with gout were significantly higher in participants < 60 years, and PD probabilities in patients with gout were significantly higher in overweight participants. Our findings identify significant correlations of gout with AD and PD in participants < 60 years and gout with PD in those with overweight, indicating that gout may play a role in the development of neurodegenerative diseases in younger or overweight populations. Further investigations should be performed to corroborate these findings.
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