Daehee Kang

Seoul National University | SNU

Background Evidence suggests a possible link between diabetes and gastric cancer risk, but the findings remain inconclusive, with limited studies in the Asian population. We aimed to assess the impact of diabetes and diabetes duration on the development of gastric cancer overall, by anatomical and histological subtypes. Methods A pooled analysis w...

There has been growing evidence suggesting that diabetes may be associated with increased liver cancer risk. However, studies conducted in Asian countries are limited. This project considered data of 968,738 adults pooled from 20 cohort studies of Asia Cohort Consortium to examine the association between baseline diabetes and liver cancer incidence...

Background The family history of gastric cancer holds important implications for cancer surveillance and prevention, yet existing evidence predominantly comes from case–control studies. We aimed to investigate the association between family history of gastric cancer and gastric cancer risk overall and by various subtypes in Asians in a prospective...

UNSTRUCTURED A number of seismic shifts is expected to reshape the future of medicine. The global population is rapidly aging, significantly impacting global disease burden. Medicine is undergoing a paradigm shift, defining and diagnosing diseases to earlier stages and shifting the healthcare focus from treating diseases to preventing them. The app...

Background Effects of confounders on associations between diet and colorectal cancer (CRC) in observational studies can be minimized in Mendelian randomization (MR) approach. This study aimed to investigate observational and genetically predicted associations between dietary intake and CRC using one-sample MR. Methods Using genetic data of over 93...

The female predominance of gallbladder cancer (GBC) has led to a hypothesis regarding the hormone‐related aetiology of GBC. We aimed to investigate the association between female reproductive factors and GBC risk, considering birth cohorts of Asian women. We conducted a pooled analysis of 331,323 women from 12 cohorts across 4 countries (China, Jap...

Previous studies have investigated the association between reproductive factors and lung cancer risk; however, findings have been inconsistent. In order to assess this association among Asian women, a total of 308,949 female participants from 11 prospective cohorts and four Asian countries (Japan, Korea, China, and Singapore) were included. Cox pro...

Importance Candidate gene analysis approaches have shown that colorectal cancer (CRC) risk attributable to diet may differ according to genotype. A genome-wide approach further allows for the exploration of underlying pathways for associations between diet and CRC risk across the genome. Objectives To identify genetic variants that modify diet-CRC...

Background The birth cohort effect has been suggested to influence the rate of breast cancer incidence and the trends of associated reproductive and lifestyle factors. We conducted a cohort study to determine whether a differential pattern of associations exists between certain factors and breast cancer risk based on birth cohorts. Methods This wa...

Body fatness is considered a probable risk factor for biliary tract cancer (BTC), whereas cholelithiasis is an established factor. Nevertheless, although obesity is an established risk factor for cholelithiasis, previous studies of the association of body mass index (BMI) and BTC did not take the effect of cholelithiasis fully into account. To bett...

Background This study aimed to explore the potential interaction between dietary intake and genetics on incident colorectal cancer (CRC) and whether adherence to healthy dietary habits could attenuate CRC risk in individuals at high genetic risk. Methods We analyzed prospective cohort data of 374,004 participants who were free of any cancers at en...

Importance: Despite evidence of an association between reproductive factors and endometrial cancer risk, prospective studies have been conducted mainly in non-Asian countries. Objective: To assess the association between reproductive factors, such as number of deliveries, age at menarche, or menopause, and endometrial cancer risk. Design, setti...

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to explore the association between adherence to 2 cancer prevention recommendations and cancer risk. Methods: In total, 104,386 individuals aged 40-69 years old who were recruited between 2004 and 2013 in the Health Examinees-Gem study were included. Adherence scores were constructed based on 8 items fro...

This study aimed to identify genetic risk loci associated with dietary intake using recently revealed data of over 93 million variants from the UK Biobank. By adjusting for familial relatedness among individuals in a linear mixed model, we identified a total of 399 genomic risk loci for the consumption of red meat (n = 15), processed meat (n = 12),...

Background: Physical activity (PA) is recommended to improve the survival of cancer patients. However, the prognostic impact of specific PAs is not well understood. Therefore, we investigated the associations of the duration, type, intensity, and number of PAs one participates in pre- and post-diagnosis with mortality in Korean patients with cance...

Although the protective effects of physical activity against several cancers are well established, evidence is inconsistent concerning Asian populations. Therefore, we assessed the association between the characteristics of physical activity and overall and type-specific cancer incidence in Koreans and examined the differences in association accord...

Background Obesity is the major cause of chronic diseases and the leading cause of mortality. We aimed to assess the impact of obesity on mortality in middle-aged Koreans using data from a Health Examinees study. Methods We used data from 39,689 men and 76,272 women who had complete information on body size and gave informed consent for the linkage...

Background: Previous studies have investigated the association between reproductive factors and lung cancer risk; however, findings have been inconsistent. This study aims to assess the association between reproductive factors with lung cancer incidence and mortality among Asian women. Methods: A total of 308,949 female participants with a mean age...

Introduction: Lifetime estrogen exposure is an essential factor for breast carcinogenesis. While adiposity impacts circulating hormones throughout a woman's life, weight gain in adulthood appears to have paradoxical effects at premenopausal and postmenopausal breast cancer risk. Thus, we evaluated the association between weight change throughout di...

Background: The association between excessive sugar intake and the risk of breast cancer has been considered in epidemiologic studied, however, the results are unclear. This study examined to evaluated between high-sugar food intake and breast cancer in a prospective cohort study. Methods: This prospective cohort study included a total of 71,266 wo...

We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of current evidence for the association between food groups, dietary patterns, and breast cancer risk among the Asian population. This systematic review and meta-analysis followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We performed a systematic l...

Objective: Early initiation of smoking is associated with adverse health outcomes. This study aimed to investigate the association of various smoking-related factors with the risk of gastric cancer in a population with a high incidence rate of gastric cancer. Method: From 2004 to 2013, Korean adults 40-69 years of age were enrolled in the large-sca...

Background: Increasing evidence suggests that metabolic disorders are a risk factor for gastric cancer. However, there is a lack of evidence on whether changes and persistence of metabolic disorders affect the subsequent gastric cancer occurrence. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of changes or persistence in metabolic syndrome an...

Background: Previous studies suggested that metabolic syndrome (MetS) might create a pro-cancer environment and increase cancer incidence. However, evidence on the risk of gastric cancer (GC) was limited. This study aimed to evaluate the association between MetS and its components and GC in the Korean population. Methods: Included were 108,397 i...

Background & aims: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of current evidence for the association between food groups, dietary patterns, and breast cancer risk among the Asian population. Methods: This systematic review and meta-analysis followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelin...

Background Epidemiological findings on the association between soybean product consumption and gastric cancer risk remain inconsistent. We evaluated the relationship between soybean product consumption and the risk of gastric cancer in a prospective cohort study in Korea. Methods This prospective cohort study included a total of 139,267 participan...

Objectives: Lifestyles, including exercise behaviors, change continually over time. This study examined whether the clinical biomarkers (CBs) related to cardiometabolic diseases (CMDs) and their relationships differed with changes in exercise behavior. Methods: The Ansan-Ansung cohort study (third to fifth phases; n=2,668) was used in the curren...

Objective: To examine the associations between modifiable risk factors and glycemic status changes in individuals with prediabetes. Research design and methods: A total of 10,358 individuals with prediabetes defined by their fasting blood glucose and HbA1c levels from the Health Examinees-Gem study were included in the present study. Modifiable...

Coffee and green tea may affect colorectal physiology and contain many bioactive components, such as polyphenol and caffeine, which have antioxidant and anti-carcinogenic activities. However, the association between coffee and green tea consumption and the risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) has been inconclusive. This study examined the association be...

By combining data from 160,500 individuals with breast cancer and 226,196 controls of Asian and European ancestry, we conducted genome- and transcriptome-wide association studies of breast cancer. We identified 222 genetic risk loci and 137 genes that were associated with breast cancer risk at a p < 5.0 × 10⁻⁸ and a Bonferroni-corrected p < 4.6 × 1...

Background Although endocrine therapy is an effective treatment for breast cancer, its antiestrogen effects are associated with increased risks of cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes. This study aimed to investigate the association between endocrine therapy and the risk of cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes among breast cancer surv...

Objective Early initiation of smoking is associated with adverse health outcomes. This study aimed to investigate the association of various smoking-related factors with the risk of gastric cancer in a population with a high incidence rate of gastric cancer. Method From 2004 to 2013, Korean adults 40–69 years of age were enrolled in the large-scal...

Objectives: We introduced the cohort studies included in the Korea Cohort Consortium (KCC), focusing on large-scale cohort studies established in Korea with a prolonged follow-up period. Moreover, we also provided projections of the follow-up and estimates of the sample size that would be necessary for big-data analyses based on pooling establishe...

Epidemiological evidence suggests that hypertension is associated with breast cancer risk. However, previous studies disregard blood pressure components in the healthy population. We aimed to examine the relationship between systolic and diastolic blood pressure and breast cancer risk in a Korean population-based prospective cohort. A total of 73,0...

Assessing the health of international migrants is crucial in the Republic of Korea, Asia, and even worldwide. We compared the risk factors for non-communicable diseases among Asian migrants in Korea and the Korean population. This cross-sectional (2015) and longitudinal (2009-2015) observational study comprised a population-wide analysis spanning 2...

Objectives This study aimed to examine the association of high-sensitivity C reactive protein ( hs CRP) with mortality risk and the attenuated effect of non-communicable disease history (NCD history ) on the association. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting Health Examinees cohort. Participants A total of 41 070 men and 81 011 women aged ≥40...

The socioecological approach emphasises that health promotion should focus on a variety of factors that surround individuals simultaneously, yet there is little evidence on how these factors relatively affect physical activity (PA). The main objective was to identify relevant determinants of PA by examining the associations between factors within m...

Abstract Background: Regarding international migrants, the theories of healthy migration effect and sick migration effect both exist; thus, assessing the health of international migrants is crucial in the Republic of Korea, Asia, and even worldwide. This study compared non-communicable disease risk factors among Asian migrants in Korea and the Kor...

Background The overall incidence of gastric cancer in women is half that in men for most global populations. Sex hormone pathways may be involved in carcinogenesis and estrogens have been postulated to protect women against gastric cancer. Aim To evaluate associations of gastric cancer with estrogen metabolites in postmenopausal women. Methods an...

Objectives: During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, crude incidence and mortality rates have been widely reported; however, age-standardized rates are more suitable for comparison. In this study, we estimated and compared the age-standardized incidence, mortality, and case fatality rates among countries and investigated the relati...

Objectives This study aimed to examine the association between metabolically healthy obesity and all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality in a Korean population. Design A prospective study. Setting This study used data from the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study. Participants A total of 140 137 participants were followed up over a...

This study aimed to understand the biological process related to the prevention of cardiovascular & metabolic diseases (CMD), including diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia via regular exercise. This study included 17,053 subjects aged 40–69 years in the Health Examinees Study from 2004 to 2012. Participation in regular exercise was investigate...

Susceptibility genes involved in disease etiology and prognosis are categorized into two groups: high penetrance genes (i.e., BRCA1, CHEK2, ATM, etc.) and low penetrance genes (i.e., NATs, GSTs, CYPs, etc., and variants identified by genome-wide association studies). Since low penetrance genes have high population attributable risk, the usefulness...

Previous genome‐wide association studies (GWASs) have been largely focused on European (EUR) populations. However, polygenic risk scores (PRSs) derived from EUR have been shown to perform worse in non‐EURs compared with EURs. In this study, we aim to improve PRS prediction in East Asians (EASs). We introduce a rescaled meta‐analysis framework to co...

Coffee is widely consumed worldwide, and numerous studies indicate that coffee consumption may potentially affect the development of chronic diseases. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) may constitute a risk factor for chronic diseases. We aimed to prospectively evaluate the association between coffee consumption and MetS incidence. All participants were se...

Background Obesity is well known as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We aimed to determine the performance of and the optimal cutoff values for obesity indices to discriminate the presence of metabolic abnormalities as a primary risk factor for cardiovascular diseases in a Health Examinees study (HEXA). Methods The current study analyzed...

Background Little is known about the time course of mortality reduction following smoking cessation in Asians who have smoking behaviours distinct from their Western counterparts. We evaluated the level of reduction in all-cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and lung cancer mortality by years since quitting smoking, in Asia. Methods Using Cox regr...

Background: It is not known if modifiable lifestyle factors that predict survival after invasive breast cancer differ by subtype. Methods: We analyzed data for 121,435 women diagnosed with breast cancer from 67 studies in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium with 16,890 deaths (8,554 breast cancer-specific) over 10 years. Cox regression was...

The effects of dietary factors on cancer development were inconsistent partly due to the study designs including the characteristics of the study population and the potential inaccuracies of dietary assessment and also due to the relationship may be influenced by genetic factors. The studies on the genetic influence on the relationship between diet...

OBJECTIVES To investigate and compare non-communicable disease (NCD) risk factors among Asian migrants in Korea, the Korean population, and the general population of their respective home countries. DESIGN A cross-sectional (2015) and longitudinal (2009‒2015) observational study. SETTING Population-wide analysis using the National Health Informat...

Scope We examined the association between carbohydrate intake from low‐, medium‐ and high‐glycaemic index (GI) foods and hyperlipidaemia among population with a high‐carbohydrate diet. Methods and results Our cross‐sectional study included a total of 93,870 participants in the Health Examinees Study (HEXA). We calculated the odds ratio (OR)s and 9...

Polygenic risk scores (PRS) for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) have the potential to improve risk stratification. Joint estimation of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) effects in models could improve predictive performance over standard approaches of PRS construction. Here, we implemented computationally-efficient, penalized, logistic regressio...

A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and observational studies was conducted to assess the association between menopausal hormone therapy and cardiovascular disease. The PubMed and EMBASE databases were searched for articles published from 2000 to 2019, using review methods based on a previous Cochrane review...

Previous research has shown that polygenic risk scores (PRSs) can be used to stratify women according to their risk of developing primary invasive breast cancer. This study aimed to evaluate the association between a recently validated PRS of 313 germline variants (PRS313) and contralateral breast cancer (CBC) risk. We included 56,068 women of Euro...

This study is aimed to examine the association between macronutrient intake and lung function in healthy adults (n = 5880) using the Ansan-Ansung cohort study. To identify the index of lung function, we used the percentage difference of predicted Forced Expiratory Volume (%FEV1_diff) between baseline and follow-up. Based on the median %FEV1_diff, s...

Purpose: Dietary calcium intake has been suggested to be protective against the development of colorectal cancer. The mean dietary calcium intake of Koreans is 490 mg/day, which is far below the recommended calcium intake of 700-800 mg/day. In this study, we explored the relationship between dietary calcium intake and colorectal cancer development...

This study aimed to investigate the association of sleep duration and quality with high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) among middle-aged and elderly Koreans. Among a total of 74,867 participants (25,069 men and 49,798 women) recruited for the Health Examinees (HEXA) study, adjusted geometric means of hs-CRP level were compared across categ...

Background: The global trend of obesity, or the “obesity epidemic,” is not confined to adults. The increasing rates of obesity at young age signifies potential burden to our society as a whole, and requires prompt attention. Although emerging evidence has indicated a possible link of obesity in early life to subsequent cancer risks, the association...

Background: Several studies have examined associations between breast cancer risk and individual foods and nutrients. Most studies have evaluated risks associated with individual foods and nutrients, rather than measures of whole-diet. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between dietary patterns and the risk for breast ca...

Background: There is a lack of evidence of the complicated pathways of underlying determinants in the phases of physical activity. The purpose of this study was to evaluate simultaneously a set of potential determinants on the initiation and maintenance phases of leisure-time physical activity (LTPA). Methods: The longitudinal data of 54,359 Korean...

Background: Obesity is well known as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We aimed to determine the performance of and the optimal cutoff value for obesity indices to discriminate the presence of cardiovascular risk factors in a Health Examinees study. Methods: The current study analyzed 134,195 participants with complete anthropometric and la...

Background: Obesity is well known as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We aimed to determine the performance of and the optimal cut-off value for obesity indices to discriminate the presence of a metabolic abnormality as a primary risk for cardiovascular diseases in a Health Examinees study (HEXA). Methods: The current study analyzed 134,19...

Polygenic risk scores (PRS) have been shown to predict breast cancer risk in European women, but their utility in Asian women is unclear. Here we evaluate the best performing PRSs for European-ancestry women using data from 17,262 breast cancer cases and 17,695 controls of Asian ancestry from 13 case-control studies, and 10,255 Chinese women from a...

Although a number of studies explain the association between dietary patterns, which take into account that foods are eaten in combination, and breast cancer risk, the findings are inconsistent. We examined the association between dietary patterns and multi-grain rice intake, and the risk of breast cancer in a large-scale prospective cohort study i...

Background Although many studies have focused on leisure time physical activity (LTPA), household physical activity (HPA) can contribute to health benefits. This study aimed to compare LTPA and HPA patterns and to examine the association of these types of activities with the risk of mortality in Korea. Methods A total of 125,299 participants 40 to...

In breast cancer, high levels of homeobox protein Hox-B13 (HOXB13) have been associated with disease progression of ER-positive breast cancer patients and resistance to tamoxifen treatment. Since HOXB13 p.G84E is a prostate cancer risk allele, we evaluated the association between HOXB13 germline mutations and breast cancer risk in a previous study...

Background Little is known about the health harms associated with low-intensity smoking in Asians who, on average, smoke fewer cigarettes and start smoking at a later age than their Western counterparts. Methods In this pooled analysis of 738 013 Asians from 16 prospective cohorts, we quantified the associations of low-intensity (<5 cigarettes/day...

Objective Previous studies have reported on marital status and the prevalence of obesity; however, few studies have assessed the prevalence of underweight in relation to marital status. This study aimed to explore the association of obesity and abdominal obesity with marital status among Koreans aged 40–69 years. Methods We selected a total of 137...

This study aimed to investigate the association between adolescent overweight and obesity and PTC risk in adulthood. We conducted a case-control study in the Republic of Korea with 1,549 PTC patients and 15,490 controls individually matched for age and sex. We estimated body mass index (BMI) at age 18 years from self-reported weight at this age. Co...

Known risk variants explain only a small proportion of breast cancer heritability, particularly in Asian women. To search for additional genetic susceptibility loci for breast cancer, here we perform a meta-analysis of data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) conducted in Asians (24,206 cases and 24,775 controls) and European descendants (1...

Genome-wide association studies have identified breast cancer risk variants in over 150 genomic regions, but the mechanisms underlying risk remain largely unknown. These regions were explored by combining association analysis with in silico genomic feature annotations. We defined 205 independent risk-associated signals with the set of credible caus...

Background Obesity is well known as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We aimed to determine the performance of and the optimal cutoff value for obesity indices to discriminate the presence of cardiovascular risk factors in a Health Examinees study. Methods The current study analyzed 134,195 participants with complete anthropometric and labo...

Epidemiologic studies regarding breast cancer risk related to milk consumption remain controversial. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between milk consumption and the risk for breast cancer. A total of 93,306 participants, aged 40–69 years, were included in the prospective cohort study in the Health Examinees-Gem (HEXA-G) study...

Objectives: Self-reported disease history is often used in epidemiological studies. In this study, we acquired the hospital records of subjects who self-reported stroke or myocardial infarction (MI) and evaluated the validity of the participants' self-reported disease history. We also determined the level of agreement between specialists and non-s...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between the frequency and quantity of coffee consumption and metabolic syndrome (MetS) in the Health Examinees study. A total of 130 420 participants (43 682 men and 86 738 women) were included in our study. Coffee consumption was categorized into 5 categories (0, <1, 1, 2-3, and ≥4 cups/day). W...

Despite the beneficial effects of omega-3 fatty acids from fish or fish oil on cardiovascular diseases, limited information is available regarding the effects of oily fish in the diet on the risk of dyslipidemia. This study aimed to investigate the association between oily fish consumption and the incidence of dyslipidemia among Korean adults inclu...

Background: We previously conducted a systematic field synopsis of 1059 breast cancer candidate gene studies and investigated 279 genetic variants, 51 of which showed associations. The major limitation of this work was the small sample size, even pooling data from all 1059 studies. Thereafter, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have accumulate...

Common genetic variants in 183 loci have been identified in relation to breast cancer risk in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). These risk variants combined explain only a relatively small proportion of breast cancer heritability, particularly in Asian populations. To search for additional genetic susceptibility loci for breast cancer, we per...

Fanconi anemia (FA) is a genetically heterogeneous disorder with 22 disease-causing genes reported to date. In some FA genes, monoallelic mutations have been found to be associated with breast cancer risk, while the risk associations of others remain unknown. The gene for FA type C, FANCC, has been proposed as a breast cancer susceptibility gene ba...

Background: To date, few epidemiologic studies have been conducted to elucidate lifestyle-related risk factors for multiple myeloma in Asia. We investigated the association of body mass index (BMI), smoking, and alcohol intake with the risk of multiple myeloma mortality through a pooled analysis of more than 800,000 participants in the Asia Cohort...

Objective To study the association of educational level and risk of death from all causes, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer among Asian populations. Design A pooled analysis of 15 population-based cohort studies. Setting and participants 694 434 Asian individuals from 15 prospective cohorts within the Asia Cohort Consortium. Interventions...

Objective The present study aimed to examine the association between dietary pattern and the risk of high blood pressure (BP) and to estimate the attenuated effect by gender and obesity on the association using data from a prospective cohort study in Korea. Design Prospective study. Diet was assessed using a validated 103-item FFQ and was input in...

Objectives This study evaluated whether individuals with affected family member adhered to healthy behaviours. Design and setting This was a cross-sectional study of participants selected from health examinees who underwent the national health check-up programme of Korea in 39 centres between 2004 and 2013. Participants The baseline data of 128 5...

Background Epidemiological studies consistently indicate that alcohol consumption is an independent risk factor for female breast cancer (BC). Although the aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) polymorphism (rs671: Glu>Lys) has a strong effect on acetaldehyde metabolism, the association of rs671 with BC risk and its interaction with alcohol intake have...

Background: The association between change in alcohol intake and metabolic syndrome is unclear. Methods: This retrospective cohort consisted of 41,368 males and females from the Health Examinees-GEM study. Participants were divided into non-drinkers (0.0 g/day), light drinkers (male: 0.1 to 19.9 g/day; female: 0.1 to 9.9 g/day), moderate drinker...

Importance Asia is home to the largest diabetic populations in the world. However, limited studies have quantified the association of diabetes with all-cause and cause-specific mortality in Asian populations. Objectives To evaluate the association of diabetes with all-cause and cause-specific mortality in Asia and to investigate potential effect m...

Objectives The interaction between positive and negative social support as well as each domain of social support and income on depressive symptom has not been much explored. We aimed to examine the associations of positive and negative social support with the risk of depressive symptoms among urban-dwelling adults in Korea, focusing on those intera...

Importance Understanding birth cohort–specific tobacco smoking patterns and their association with total and cause-specific mortality is important for projecting future deaths due to tobacco smoking across Asian populations. Objectives To assess secular trends of tobacco smoking by countries or regions and birth cohorts and evaluate the consequent...

Objective Several studies identified neighbourhood context as a predictor of prognosis in ischaemic heart disease (IHD). The present study investigates the relationships of neighborhood-level and individual-level socioeconomic status with the odds of ongoing management of IHD, using baseline survey data from the Korea Health Examinees-Gem study. D...