General characteristics included age, sex, smoking, amount of smoking, body mass index (BMI), hypertension, DM and education level. The asthma-related characteristics included age of onset, present asthma care, medication and asthma diagnosis. Whether the patient suffered from asthma was determined by asking them, ‘Have you ever been diagnosed with asthma by a doctor in your entire life?’; 3.1% of respondents (158 people) answered ‘yes’ and 96.9% (4887 people) answered ‘no’.
Three blood pressure (BP) readings were taken at regular intervals in a stable state. The mean of the second and third BPs was measured as the final systolic blood pressure (SBP) and final diastolic blood pressure (DBP). Blood sampling was performed in the morning, after fasting for ≥8 h, by cubital vein puncture using a vacutainer needle with blood drawn into a vacuum tube. FBG was measured by the hexokinase ultraviolet method and analysed with a Hitachi Automatic Analyzer 7600-210 (Hitachi, Marunouchi, Japan) using Pureauto S GLU (Sekisui, Osaka, Japan) reagent. The HbA1c assay was measured by a high-performance liquid chromatography assay analysed with a Tosoh G8 instrument (Tosoh, Shiba, Japan) using HLC-723G8 HbA1c (Tosoh). The insulin measurement was performed using the electrochemiluminescence method and analysed with a Cobas 8000 instrument (Roche, Basel, Switzerland) using Elecys insulin (Roche).
Three blood pressure (BP) readings were taken at regular intervals in a stable state. The mean of the second and third BPs was measured as the final systolic blood pressure (SBP) and final diastolic blood pressure (DBP). Blood sampling was performed in the morning, after fasting for ≥8 h, by cubital vein puncture using a vacutainer needle with blood drawn into a vacuum tube. FBG was measured by the hexokinase ultraviolet method and analysed with a Hitachi Automatic Analyzer 7600-210 (Hitachi, Marunouchi, Japan) using Pureauto S GLU (Sekisui, Osaka, Japan) reagent. The HbA1c assay was measured by a high-performance liquid chromatography assay analysed with a Tosoh G8 instrument (Tosoh, Shiba, Japan) using HLC-723G8 HbA1c (Tosoh). The insulin measurement was performed using the electrochemiluminescence method and analysed with a Cobas 8000 instrument (Roche, Basel, Switzerland) using Elecys insulin (Roche).