Effects of lifetime cumulative ginseng intake on cognitive function in late life

Table 1 Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics among groups divided according to cumulative ginseng intake

Characteristic		Cumulative ginseng intake
Characteristic	Total (N = 6422)	No use group (N = 5745)	Low use group (< 5 years) (N = 491)	High use group (≥ 5 years) (N = 186)	p value^a	Post hoc^b
Cumulative ginseng intake (years)	0.46 ± 2.28	0.0	1.85 ± 1.26	11.0 ± 7.21	< 0.001	0 < 1 < 2
Cumulative ginseng intake (amounts)	166.3 ± 820.8	0.0	663.4 ± 404.2	3989.7 ± 2595.7	< 0.001	0 < 1 < 2
Age (years)	70.2 ± 6.92	70.4 ± 7.0	68.6 ± 6.0	69.7 ± 5.9	< 0.001	0 > 1
Female, n (%)	3649 (56.8)	3316 (57.7)	252 (51.3)	81 (43.5)	< 0.001
Education (years)	8.0 ± 5.3	7.7 ± 5.3	9.7 ± 5.1	11.9 ± 4.8	< 0.001	0 < 1 < 2
SES (medical insurance), n (%)	6186 (95.0)	5529 (94.8)	472 (95.4)	185 (98.9)	0.024
BMI (kg/m²)^c	24.1 ± 3.1	24.1 ± 3.1	23.7 ± 2.9	23.7 ± 2.7	0.006	0 > 1
Smoking (pack-years)^c	10.5 ± 29.8	10.7 ± 30.9	9.6 ± 18.2	8.9 ± 16.7	0.575
Alcohol intake (units in lifetime)^c	1.3 × 10⁴ ± 4.2 × 10⁴	1.3 × 10⁴ ± 4.3 × 10⁴	1.3 × 10⁴ ± 3.1 × 10⁴	1.5 × 10⁴ ± 3.1 × 10⁴	0.768
Presence of hypertension, n (%)	3399 (52.9)	3046 (53.0)	252 (51.3)	101 (54.3)	0.869
Stroke history, n (%)	508 (7.9)	463 (8.1)	34 (6.9)	11 (5.9)	0.174
APOE e4 carrier, n (%)^c	1215 (23.3)	1058 (22.9)	119 (27.9)	38 (22.8)	0.186
GDS-K^c	10.1 ± 6.6	10.2 ± 6.6	9.3 ± 6.3	8.5 ± 5.9	< 0.001	0 > 1, 0 > 2
CIRS^c	4.5 ± 2.8	4.5 ± 2.8	4.8 ± 2.8	5.2 ± 3.0	0.001	0 < 2

Data shown as mean ± standard deviation for continuous variables
BMI body mass index, CIRS cumulative illness rating scale, GDS-K Korean version of the Geriatric Depression Scale, SES socioeconomic status
^aDerived from one-way analysis of variance for continuous variables, from a linear-by-linear association test for categorical variables
^bPost-hoc analysis using Bonferroni; 0, 1, and 2 denote nonusers, low ginseng intake group (< 5 years), and high ginseng intake group (≥ 5 years) respectively
^cMissing values: BMI, n = 482; smoking, n = 62; alcohol intake, n = 52; APOE e4 carrier, n = 1212; GDS-K, n = 237; CIRS, n = 2

ISSN: 1758-9193