About the Authors

Chih-Wei Tseng

Affiliations Department of Internal Medicine, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chia-Yi, Taiwan, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzuchi University, Hualien, Taiwan

Chi-Yi Chen

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, Chia-Yi Christian Hospital, Chia-Yi, Taiwan

Ting-Tsung Chang

Affiliations Department of Internal Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Tainan, Taiwan, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan

Shinn-Jia Tzeng

Affiliation Department of Agronomy, National Chiayi University, Chiayi, Taiwan

Yu-Hsi Hsieh

Affiliations Department of Internal Medicine, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chia-Yi, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzuchi University, Hualien, Taiwan

Tsung-Hsing Hung

Affiliations Department of Internal Medicine, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chia-Yi, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzuchi University, Hualien, Taiwan

Ching-Chih Lee

Affiliation Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Department of Otolaryngology, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chia-Yi, Taiwan

Shu-Fen Wu

Affiliation Institute of Molecular Biology, National Chung Cheng University, Chia-Yi, Taiwan

Kuo-Chih Tseng

tsengkuochih@gmail.com

Affiliations Department of Internal Medicine, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chia-Yi, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzuchi University, Hualien, Taiwan

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KCT TTC. Performed the experiments: CWT CYC KCT YHH THH. Analyzed the data: CWT SJT CCL SFW KCT. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: YHH THH CYC. Wrote the paper: CWT.