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Association between body mass index and irritable bowel syndrome in the young Japanese population: a cross-sectional study

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International Journal of Colorectal Disease Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

The association between body mass index (BMI) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has been inconsistent in the Asian population. Also, no evidence regarding this issue in the young population exists. The aim of the present study is to investigate the association between BMI and IBS based on the Rome III criteria in young Japanese people.

Methods

This study was a cross-sectional study consisted of 8923 Japanese university students. The definition of IBS was based on the Rome III criteria. BMI was divided into four categories (quartiles) on the basis of the study subjects’ distribution (lowest, low, moderate, and high [reference]). The definition of lean, normal, and overweight was BMI < 18.5 kg/m2, 18.5 ≤ BMI < 25 kg/m2 (reference), and 25 ≤ BMI kg/m2, respectively. Age, sex, drinking, smoking, exercise habit, anemia, and sports injury were selected a priori as potential confounding factors.

Results

The prevalence of IBS was 6.5%, with females having a significantly higher prevalence than males (6.0% vs. 7.2%, p = 0.029). In females, being overweight was independently positively associated with IBS after adjustment (adjusted odds ratio [OR]: 1.81 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.13–2.79]). In contrast, in males, no association between being lean or overweight and IBS was found.

Conclusions

Among the young Japanese population, being overweight might be independently positively associated with prevalence of IBS in females but not in males.

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Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mikage Oiwa, Hiromi Miyauchi, Yuko Matsumoto, Takako Yamamoto, Miyuki Kataoka, Hiroko Suzuki, Masumi Hino, Tomo Kogama, Katsutoshi Okada, Katsuhiko Kohara, Shuichi Saheski, and all of the Health Services Center staff for their support.

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Author notes

  1. Yasunori Yamamoto and Shinya Furukawa made an equal contribution to this work and share first authorship.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Endoscopy Center, Ehime University Hospital, Toon, Ehime, Japan

    Yasunori Yamamoto & Yoshio Ikeda

  2. Health Services Center, Ehime University, Bunkyo, Matsuyama, Ehime, 790-8577, Japan

    Shinya Furukawa, Aki Kato, Katsunori Kusumoto & Yuka Saeki

  3. Department of Rehabilitation, Ehime Prefectural Central Hospital, Matsuyama, Ehime, Japan

    Junichi Watanabe

  4. Department of Gastroenterology and Metabology, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, Shitsukawa, Toon, Ehime, Japan

    Teruki Miyake & Yoichi Hiasa

  5. Department of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases and Therapeutics, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, Toon, Ehime, Japan

    Eiji Takeshita

  6. Faculty of Collaborative Regional Innovation, Ehime University, Matsuyama, Ehime, Japan

    Naofumi Yamamoto

  7. Community Health Systems for Nursing, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, Toon, Ehime, Japan

    Yuka Saeki

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  1. Yasunori Yamamoto
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Contributions

Conception and design: YY and SF; material preparation and data collection: AK, KK, and YS; data analysis: YY and SF; interpretation of data: YY, SF, JW, AK, KK, TM, SY, ET, YI, YS, and YH; the first draft of the manuscript was written by YY and SF; supervision: YH. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shinya Furukawa.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The protocol for this study followed the ethical guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki. This study was approved by the ethics committee of Ehime University of Medical Science (approval no. 1610012). We applied opt-out method to obtain consent on this this study by using the poster and web-site.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Yamamoto, Y., Furukawa, S., Watanabe, J. et al. Association between body mass index and irritable bowel syndrome in the young Japanese population: a cross-sectional study. Int J Colorectal Dis 37, 2357–2363 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00384-022-04267-8

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