Smoking history and all-cause, ischaemic heart disease and lung cancer mortality: follow-up study of 358 551 men and women aged 40-43 years

Influential Attributes on Medical Expense for Korean Older Adults Based on Mental Accounting: Panel Data Analysis Using Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging Data

Backgrounds: Korean society is entering an aging society, and this phenomenon indicates the need for preparation for aging in Korean society. In such a situation, exploring the characteristics of the elderly can be considered important for preparation. The objective of this study is to identify the determinants of medical expenses among older adults in South Korea. The key factors analyzed include food, leisure, and housing expenses, as well as lifestyle choices such as drinking and smoking. Method: Data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging, covering 7374 observations from the years 2018 and 2020, are adopted for statistical analysis. This research explores the inverted-U-shape effect of food, leisure, and housing expenditures on medical costs, grounded in the concepts of diminishing marginal utility and mental accounting. A quadratic panel regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses, controlling for variables such as birth year, gender, and personal assets. Results: The results show that food and housing expenses have an inverted-U relationship with medical expenditures based on diminishing marginal utility and mental accounting as the theoretical foundation. However, leisure expenses, drinking, and smoking do not significantly affect medical expenses. Furthermore, this study identifies the optimal expenditure levels for maximizing medical spending through the first-order condition. Conclusions: These findings provide important insights for the development of policies aimed at improving the financial well-being of older adults in South Korea. Moreover, this study contributes to the literature by applying the concepts of mental accounting and the law of diminishing marginal utility to better understand the financial behavior of older adults.

Impact of gout on cardiovascular disease mortality: a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Several epidemiological studies have suggested that gout patients have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease mortality than healthy people. In contrast, the association between gout and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality was not obvious in other studies. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the relative risk for CVD mortality in gout patients in comparison to healthy controls.

METHODS

Literature published before March 2023 was searched in Google Scholar, PubMed, and the Web of Science. We summarized the impact of gout on CVD mortality with a meta-analysis. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) regarding the impact of gout on CVD mortality were summarized with STATA 12.0 software.

RESULTS

Compared to individuals without gout, those with gout had higher mortality risks for CVD during follow-up, with a random effects model showing a risk of 1.30 (95% CI 1.15 to 1.48, p < 0.001; p-value for Cochran Q test < 0.001, I2 = 95.9%). Similarly, subjects with gout had a mortality risk of 1.28 (95% CI 1.12 to 1.46, p < 0.001; p-value for Cochran Q test = 0.050, I2 = 50.2%) for coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality during follow-up using the same statistical model. Furthermore, using a fixed effects model, individuals with gout had a mortality risk of 1.13 (95% CI 1.00 to 1.27, p = 0.049; p-value for Cochran Q test = 0.494, I2 = 0.0%) for myocardial infarction (MI) mortality during follow-up.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, this meta-analysis provides evidence supporting a markedly increased mortality risk from CVD and CHD as well as MI in patients with gout relative to reference subjects without gout.