Exposure to the Chinese famine in early life and self-reported arthritis risk in adulthood

ABSTRACT

Evidence shows that undernutrition during early life is associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases in adulthood. We aimed to investigate whether exposure to the Chinese famine in the fetal or infant stage was associated with self-reported arthritis risk in adulthood. A total of 3,622 participants were included in the final analysis. Participants were classified into non-, fetal-, and infant-exposed group. Arthritis was self-reported doctor-diagnosed arthritis. A multivariate logistic regression model was used to calculate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of arthritis. The prevalence of arthritis was 27.07%, 27.74%, and 34.09% among individuals in non-, fetal-, infant-exposed group, respectively. Infant-exposed group (OR: 1.32; 95% CI: 1.12-1.56) had a higher arthritis risk then non-exposed group after adjustment for gender, age, area, education level, smoking status, drinking status, and physical activity. Participants who experienced severe famine during infant and fetal period had higher (41.46%, OR=1.71 and 32.94%, OR=1.36) arthritis risk than those exposed to less severe famine. Exposure to the Chinese famine in early life was associated with an increased risk of arthritis in adulthood, which was partially influenced by some factors (e.g., gender, area, body mass index, and born in severely affected area or not).

KEYWORDS:

• Undernutrition
• arthritis
• Chinese famine
• fetal
• infant

Acknowledgments

We thank the Peking National Center for Economic Research for providing the CHARLS data. We also thank all the participants for their cooperation, and investigators for assisting in collecting the sample and questionnaire data.

Data sharing statement

The CHARLS data are available online (http://charls.pku.edu.cn/zh-CN/page/data/2011-charls-wave1).

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no external funding.