Background
: 'Masked Hypertension' is a phenomenon of blood pressure that is normotensive by clinic measurement but proves to be hypertensive by 24 hour-AMBP and is associated with many cardiovascular complications and its clinical importance has become the center of public interest. However, in Korea no study concerning masked hypertension has ever been published so far. We investigated the frequency and the related factors of masked hypertension among Koreans.

Methods : Overall, 53 volunteers from Incheon and Seoul, Korea, who were 40 years old and abov were enrolled from August 2003 to August 2004. We checked their blood pressure and pulse rate every hour using an ambulatory blood pressure monitoring device [SpaceLabs 90207] for 24 hours. Masked hypertension was defined as office mean BP less than 140/90 mmHg and daytime mean BP over 135/85 mmHg.

Results : Among the total, 15 subjects met the criteria of masked hypertension (28.3%) Current smoking (P=0.021), higher clinic mean SBP (P=0.011) and DBP (P=0.027), and prehypertension (P=0.04) were identified as related factors. And when adjusted for sex by logistic regression, only current smoking was statistically significant (P=0.039) and prehypertension showed borderline significance (P=0.092) (CI=95%). Additionally, mean pulse pressures and mean standard deviation of individual mean SBP were higher in the masked hypertension group.

Conclusion : The frequency of masked hypertension was 28.3% the and related factors were current smoking and higher office BP, especially prehypertension that was introduced in JNC-7. The fact that the pulse pressure and the variability of individual SBP were higher in the masked hypertension group remains thought-provoking.

Background
: It is well known that there is an adverse effect of long-term cigarette smoking on pulmonary function. But there are few reports about the effect of different habits of cigarette smoking on pulmonary function. Some smokers think that different habits of cigarette smoking are safer than others and this can be, an obstacle to the education of smoking cessation. Therefore, we have obtained applicable basic information for education of smoking cessation by anaysing the effects of different habits of cigarette smoking on pulmonary function.

Methods : We surveyed current smokers on different habits of smoking who had performed pulmonary function test at the pulmonary function laboratory of one tertiary hospital in Seoul and pulmonary function test was done as a part of comprehensive health check-up at health promotion center of one secondary hospital at Ulsan from May 1998 to July 1998.

Results : The factors were age, height, weight and amount of total smoking that had effect on pulmonary function. There were six different habits of smoking that we could analyse time of first smoking after sleep, average time of one cigarette smoked, current amount of smoking, length of one cigarette smoked, effort to quit smoking, smoking with drinking and all these six habits of smoking had no relationship with the results of the pulmonary function test.

Conclusion : The damage in pulmonary function was not protected by different habits of smoking that were previously known to be more safe or healthy. Therefore, we concluded that smoking cessation is the only way to prevent the damage in pulmonary function from cigarette smoking.