Relationship between glutathione S-transferase gene polymorphisms and enzyme activity in Hong Kong Chinese asthmatics.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at the intervention named in the title.

To investigate the association of GST gene polymorphisms and its enzyme activity with the risk of asthma in Hong Kong Chinese adults.

Why It Was Studied

The glutathione S-transferases (GST) are a group of enzymes that protect cells from oxidative stress.

Functional genetic polymorphisms of GST genes (GSTT1, GSTM1 and GSTP1) have previously been reported.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 315 patients taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

An age- and smoking status-matched case-control study was carried out on 315 patients with asthma and 315 healthy controls.

Genotyping was carried out on genomic DNA using the PCR and/or restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized study.

Because people in this study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Plasma GST activity was measured by fluorometric assay.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Asian People, Asthma, Case-Control Studies, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genotype, Glutathione Transferase and Hong Kong.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study in 315 patients.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2007 (Clinical and experimental allergy : journal of the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.