Relationship between psychosocial factors and serum level of pepsinogen group I and gastrinemia in the normal subject.

he relationship between some psychosocial factors and serum level of Pepsinogen Group I (PG-I) and gastrinemia have been evaluated in 163 normal subjects using correlation procedures. The psychosocial variables investigated included: age, sex, education, social class, smoking, drinking, anxiety (as measured by the State Trait Anxiety Inventory) and psychological distress (as measured by the Symptom Distress Check-List 90). The variables with the highest (positive) correlation with PG-I were smoking and age. The factors mostly linked with gastrinemia were age (positively correlated) and trait anxiety (negatively correlated). The percentage of variation explained by these variables was, however, relatively low.