Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 21, 2017; 23(15): 2750-2756
Published online Apr 21, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i15.2750
Association of obesity with Helicobacter pylori infection: A retrospective study
Mei-Yan Xu, Lan Liu, Bao-Shi Yuan, Jian Yin, Qing-Bin Lu
Mei-Yan Xu, Jian Yin, Department of Nutrition, Aerospace Center Hospital, Beijing 100049, China
Lan Liu, Bao-Shi Yuan, Department of Health Management, Aerospace Center Hospital, Beijing 100049, China
Qing-Bin Lu, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China
Author contributions: Xu MY and Liu L contributed equally to this work; Xu MY, Liu L and Lu QB designed the study, analyzed the data and wrote the paper; Liu L, Yuan BS and Yin J collected the data; Yin J and Yuan BS revised the paper; all authors have read and approved the final version to be published.
Supported by the State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity (Academy of Military Medical Science), No. SKLPBS1442; and the Youth Talent Support Program of the School of Public Health, Peking University.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Aerospace Center Hospital.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: We have no financial relationships to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available in this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Qing-Bin Lu, MD, School of Public Health, Peking University, No. 38 Xue-Yuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100191, China. qingbinlu@bjmu.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-10-82805327 Fax: +86-10-82805327
Received: December 12, 2016
Peer-review started: December 14, 2016
First decision: December 29, 2016
Revised: January 17, 2017
Accepted: March 15, 2017
Article in press: March 15, 2017
Published online: April 21, 2017
Processing time: 129 Days and 3.5 Hours
Abstract
AIM

To explore the association between Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection and obesity/weight gain in a Chinese population.

METHODS

Our primary outcome was the change in body mass index (BMI). The generalized linear models were used to explore the association between H. pylori infection and the change of BMI, and the logistic regression models were used to explore the association between H. pylori infection and obesity.

RESULTS

A total of 3039 subjects were recruited and analyzed, of which 12.8% were obese. The prevalence of H. pylori infection was 53.9% (1639/3039) overall and 54.6% (212/388) in the obese subjects. The change of BMI in the H. pylori (+) group was not significantly higher than that in the H. pylori (-) group after adjustment for potential confounding factors [RR = 0.988, 95%CI: 0.924-1.057, P = 0.729]. The prevalence of obesity decreased 1.1% in the H. pylori (+) group and 0.5% in the H. pylori (-) group. The RR of H. pylori infection for obesity was 0.831 (95%CI: 0.577-1.197, P = 0.321) after the adjustment.

CONCLUSION

H. pylori infection was not associated with overweight/obesity observed from the retrospective study in this Chinese population.

Keywords: Obesity; Helicobacter pylori; Retrospective study; China

Core tip: The association between Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection and obesity/weight gain is still unclear and controversial. We performed this retrospective study with a large sample size to explore the association between H. pylori infection and obesity/weight gain in Chinese people. The change in body mass index and the prevalence of obesity over two years in the H. pylori (+) group were not significantly higher than those in the H. pylori (-) group. We concluded that H. pylori infection was not associated with overweight/obesity observed from this study of Chinese people.