Article Text
Abstract
Objectives To evaluate the association between healthy lifestyle behaviours and the incidence of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Design Population-based prospective cohort study.
Setting The UK Biobank.
Participants 64 268 adults aged 37 to 73 years who had no IBS diagnosis at baseline were enrolled between 2006 and 2010 and followed up to 2022.
Main exposure The five healthy lifestyle behaviours studied were never smoking, optimal sleep, high level of vigorous physical activity, high dietary quality and moderate alcohol intake.
Main outcome measure The incidence of IBS.
Results During a mean follow-up of 12.6 years, 961 (1.5%) incident IBS cases were recorded. Among the 64 268 participants (mean age 55.9 years, 35 342 (55.0%) female, 7604 (11.8%) reported none of the five healthy lifestyle behaviours, 20 662 (32.1%) reported 1 behaviour, 21 901 (34.1%) reported 2 behaviours and 14 101 (21.9%) reported 3 to 5 behaviours at baseline. The multivariable adjusted hazard ratios associated with having 1, 2 and 3 to 5 behaviours for IBS incidence were 0.79 (95% confidence intervals 0.65 to 0.96), 0.64 (0.53 to 0.78) and 0.58 (0.46 to 0.72), respectively (P for trend <0.001). Never smoking (0.86, 0.76 to 0.98, P=0.02), high level of vigorous physical activity (0.83, 0.73 to 0.95, P=0.006) and optimal sleep (0.73, 0.60 to 0.88, P=0.001) demonstrated significant independent inverse associations with IBS incidence. No significant interactions were observed between these associations and age, sex, employment status, geographic location, gastrointestinal infection, endometriosis, family history of IBS or lifestyle behaviours.
Conclusions Adhering to a higher number of healthy lifestyle behaviours is significantly associated with a lower incidence of IBS in the general population. Our findings suggest the potential of lifestyle modifications as a primary prevention strategy for IBS.
- IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME
Data availability statement
Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. The UK Biobank data are available on application at https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk.
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Data availability statement
Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. The UK Biobank data are available on application at https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk.
Footnotes
Contributors VCHC designed the study. FFH, HS, HZ and DCNW conducted the data analysis. Y-YG, MHW, IX-YW and JW contributed to project administration. FFH and VCHC drafted the manuscript. All authors critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content and approved the final version of the manuscript. IX-YW is the funding receiver and study guarantor. The corresponding author (IX-YW) attests that all the listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted.
Funding This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2020YFC2008601) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81973709). The funders had no role in the study design or implementation; data collection, management, analysis, or interpretation; manuscript preparation, review, or approval; or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research. Refer to the Methods section for further details.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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