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Nonfood Probiotic, Prebiotic, and Synbiotic Use Reduces All-Cause and Cardiovascular Mortality Risk in Older Adults: A Population-Based Cohort Study

  • Original Research
  • Published:
The journal of nutrition, health & aging

Abstract

Objectives

Pro-, pre-, and synbiotic supplements improve cardiovascular risk factors. However, the association between nonfood pro-, pre-, and synbiotics (NPPS) and long-term all-cause and cardiovascular mortality has not been studied. Thus, our objective was to determine the impact of nonfood pro-, pre-, and synbiotics on all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This was a retrospective, cohort study of 4837 nationally representative American participants aged 65 years or older with a median follow-up duration of 77 months.

Measurements

All-cause and cardiovascular mortality were measured.

Results

A total of 1556 participants died during the median 77-month follow-up, and 517 died from cardiovascular disease. Compared with participants without NPPS use, participants who used NPPS experienced a reduced risk of all-cause mortality by nearly 41% (hazard ratio 0.59, 95% CI 0.43 to 0.79) and cardiovascular mortality by 52% (HR 0.48, 95% CI 0.30 to 0.76). Such an effect persisted in most subgroup analyses and complete-case analyses.

Conclusion and Relevance

In this study, we found a protective effect of NPPS against all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in Americans aged 65 years or older. Nonfood pro-, pre-, and synbiotics can be a novel, inexpensive, low-risk treatment addition for all-cause and cardiovascular mortality for older individuals.

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Data Availability Statement

Publicly available datasets were used in this study. These can be found in NHANES at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/index.htm.

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Acknowledgement

The authors thank the participants and staff of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007–2016 for their valuable contributions.

Funding

This study is funded by the Zhejiang Traditional Chinese Medicine Research Fund Project (2022ZB405) for covering publication fees.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Ruming Shen and Shuaijie Chen contributed equally as the co-first author

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cardiology, Lishui Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, No.289, Kuocang Road, Liandu District, Lishui, China

    R. Shen, S. Chen, J. Shen, Lingchun Lv & Tiemin Wei

  2. Department of Cardiology, Lishui Central Hospital and the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Lishui, China

    R. Shen, S. Chen & W. Lei

Authors
  1. R. Shen
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  2. S. Chen
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  3. W. Lei
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  4. J. Shen
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Contributions

R.S. contributed to the study design, data analysis, and manuscript drafting. S.C. (co-first author) contributed to the study design and data analysis. W.L. contributed to manuscript drafting. J.S. contributed to interpretation of the data. T.W. and L.L. contributed to the study design and critical revision. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Lingchun Lv or Tiemin Wei.

Ethics declarations

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Ethics Review Board approved the NHANES program. Written informed consent was obtained for participation in this study.

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Conflict of interest disclosure form

he authors declare that they have no known competing fiscal interests or personal relationships perceived to have influenced the work reported in this article.

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Shen, R., Chen, S., Lei, W. et al. Nonfood Probiotic, Prebiotic, and Synbiotic Use Reduces All-Cause and Cardiovascular Mortality Risk in Older Adults: A Population-Based Cohort Study. J Nutr Health Aging 27, 391–397 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-023-1921-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-023-1921-1

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