Constitutional multicenter bank linked to Sasang constitutional phenotypic data

Area of Science:

• Integrative Medicine
• Personalized Medicine
• Biobanking

Background:

• Biobanks are crucial for medical research, offering data for hypothesis testing and validation.
• The Korea Constitutional Multicenter Bank (KCMB) was established to provide a scientific foundation for Sasang Constitutional Medicine (SCM).

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and establish the KCMB as a resource for SCM research.
• To collect comprehensive data including questionnaires, physical measurements, and biological information.

Main Methods:

• Data collection occurred from 2006 in 24 Korean medical clinics.
• Included questionnaire data, physical measurements, and biological information (blood tests, DNA analyses).
• Utilized direct standardization and Chi-square tests for constitutional type distribution analysis.

Main Results:

• Collected data from 3,711 participants (1,353 men, 2,358 women).
• Estimated constitutional distributions: Tae-eumin (39.2%), Soeumin (27.1%), Soyangyin (33.7%), Taeyangyin (<0.1%).
• Identified significant differences in disease frequencies (hypertension, diabetes, etc.) among SC types (P < 0.001).

Conclusions:

• The KCMB is valuable for verifying SCM theories and practices.
• Data from KCMB can offer new insights into SCM mechanisms.
• KCMB findings support healthcare policy decisions and novel therapy development.