Abstract Body: Background:
Long-term antibiotic use during adulthood has been associated with a high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in adults. However, it remains unclear whether antibiotic use during early life is related to incident adulthood CVD risk.
Methods:
We analyzed the associations of long-term or recurrent antibiotic use (LRAU) during early life and incident CVD events based on a large cohort of 151541 participants in the UK Biobank, using cox proportional hazards models.
Results:
During a median of 12.2 years of follow-up, 9444 total CVD incidents were documented, including 7272 coronary heart disease cases and 2,641 stroke cases. In the fully adjusted model, LRAU during early life was significantly associated with a higher risk of total CVD events and coronary heart disease (CHD), with a hazard ratio of 1.19 (95% confidence interval, 1.12–1.26) and 1.22 (1.14-1.31) respectively. LRAU during early life was not significantly associated with stroke. In addition, LRAU during early life showed significant multiplicative interactions with women (P for multiplicative interaction = 0.035) and hypertension at baseline (P for multiplicative interaction < 0.001) on the risk of CVD was observed. Stronger associations were found in women and individuals with hypertension than their counterparts. Moreover, we found that LRAU during early life ranked higher in relative strength than lifestyle factors apart from smoking in predicting CVD.
Conclusions:
LRAU during early life is associated with a higher risk of CVD during adulthood. The associations are stronger among women and individuals with hypertension at baseline.