About the Authors

Chih-Wei Chen

Affiliations Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan

Ting-Chang Chen

Affiliations Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology, Department of Internal Medicine, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan

Kuang-Yung Huang

Affiliations Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan

Pesus Chou

Affiliation Community Medicine Research Center and Institute of Public Health, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

Pin-Fan Chen

hematcd@hotmail.com (CCL); hematcd2@hotmail.com (PFC)

Affiliations Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology, Department of Internal Medicine, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan

Ching-Chih Lee

hematcd@hotmail.com (CCL); hematcd2@hotmail.com (PFC)

Affiliations Department of Otolaryngology, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan, Department of Education, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan, Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: CWC CCL PFC. Analyzed the data: CCL PFC PC. Wrote the paper: CWC TCC KYH PC PFC CCL.