Background: The Great Chinese Famine, as the famine of 1959– 1961 was often known. Famine exposure during early life was proven to be associated with some kidney diseases but has not been studied with kidney stone. We aimed to investigate the relationship between exposure to the Great Chinese Famine in early life and the incidence of kidney stone in adulthood.
Methods: From 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2018, a total of 19,658 eligible adults were recruited in a cross-sectional survey who were born between 1 October 1952 and 30 September 1964 in Guangdong, China. Participants were separated into kidney stone and none-kidney stone groups based on kidney stone status. According to birth data, participants were divided into non-exposed, fetal-exposed, early-, mid-, and late-childhood-exposed groups. Multivariate logistic regression, subgroup analysis and interaction test were used to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and confidence intervals (CIs) between famine exposure and kidney stone.
Results: In total, 19,658 (12,246 female, mean age 59.31 ± 3.68 years) subjects were enrolled, and 3219 (16.38%) participants with kidney stone. The prevalence of kidney in none-, fetal-, early-, mid-, and late-childhood-exposed groups were 645 (14.9%), 437 (15.9%), 676 (16.3%), 743 (17.0%), and 718 (17.6%), respectively (P< 0.001). When compared with the unexposed group, the fully adjusted ORs for kidney stone from fetal-exposed, early-, mid- to late-childhood-exposed groups were 1.37 (95% CI: 1.13, 1.68, P=0.002), 1.98 (95% CI: 1.45, 2.72, P< 0.001), 2.94 (95% CI: 1.96, 4.42, P< 0.001), and 3.48 (95% CI: 2.11, 5.72, P< 0.001), respectively (P for trend< 0.001). Subgroup analyses revealed no interactions between the famine effect on kidney stones and body mass index, gender, smoking status, history of diabetes or hypertension (all P for interaction > 0.05).
Conclusion: This study found that exposure to the Great Chinese Famine during early life was independently associated with the increased incidence of kidney stone in adulthood.
Keywords: Great Chinese Famine, early life, famine exposure, adulthood, kidney stone