Early childhood infections and body mass index in adolescence.
Int J Obes (Lond)
; 45(5): 1143-1151, 2021 05.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33772146
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The incidence of childhood overweight and obesity is rising. It is hypothesized that infections in early childhood are associated with being overweight. This study investigated the association between the number of symptomatic infections or antibiotic prescriptions in the first 3 years of life and body mass index (BMI) in adolescence.SUBJECTS:
The current study is part of the Prevention and Incidence of Asthma and Mite Allergy population-based birth cohort study. Weight and height were measured by trained research staff at ages 12 and 16 years. The 3015 active participants at age 18 years were asked for informed consent for general practitioner (GP) data collection and 1519 gave written informed consent. Studied exposures include (1) GP-diagnosed infections, (2) antibiotic prescriptions, and (3) parent-reported infections in the first 3 years of life. Generalized estimating equation analysis was used to determine the association between each of these exposures and BMI z-score.RESULTS:
Exposure data and BMI measurement in adolescence were available for 622 participants. The frequencies of GP-diagnosed infections and antibiotic prescriptions were not associated with BMI z-score in adolescence with estimates being 0.14 (95% CI -0.09-0.37) and 0.10 (95% CI -0.14-0.34) for the highest exposure categories, respectively. Having ≥6 parent-reported infections up to age 3 years was associated with a 0.23 (95% CI 0.01-0.44) higher BMI z-score compared to <2 parent-reported infections.CONCLUSIONS:
For all infectious disease measures an increase in BMI z-score for the highest childhood exposure to infectious disease was observed, although only statistically significant for parent-reported infections. These results do not show an evident link with infection severity, but suggest a possible cumulative effect of repeated symptomatic infections on overweight development.
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Índice de Massa Corporal
/
Infecções
Tipo de estudo:
Observational_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limite:
Adolescent
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Child
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Child, preschool
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Female
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Humans
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Infant
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Male
País como assunto:
Europa
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2021
Tipo de documento:
Article