Association between Antibiotics in Urines and Adult Obesity in Shanghai

Abstract

Background: Exposure to antibiotics was found to be one possible risk factor of child obesity, but the information on adults is limited.Objective: To investigate the association between antibiotics in urines and adult obesity in Shanghai.Methods: 530 adults aged 21-75 years from two towns located in the suburb of Shanghai were studied in 2017. Their spot urines and demographic data were collected and the anthropometric measurements were performed. 18 common used antibiotics from five categories (4 fluoroquinolones, 4 tetracyclines, 3 phenicols, 3 macrolides, and 4 sulfonamides) were determined in urines by the isotope dilution-based UPLC-Q/TOF MS. These subjects were classified into 3 groups, namely normal weight, overweight, and obesity, based on the body mass index-based cutoff points recommended by the guidelines on prevention and control of overweight and obesity in Chinese adults. The multinomial logistic regression model was used to explore the association of antibiotic concentration sum by category with overweight and obesity.Results: The overall detection frequencies of five antibiotic categories ranged from 1.9% to 28.7%. Compared to the subjects in the tertile 1 of concentration sum of fluoroquinolones, the adjusted odds ratios (ORs) of subjects in tertile 3 were 1.56 (95% confidence interval: 0.90, 2.71; p-Value: 0.116) for overweight and 0.97 (0.42, 2.26; 0.948) for obesity. Similarly, for tetracyclines, the ORs were 6.06 (1.63, 22.52; 0.007) for overweight and 2.88 (0.46, 18.08; 0.259) for obesity and for phenicols, the ORs were 4.50 (1.43, 14.15; 0.010) for overweight and 8.16 (2.20, 30.23; 0.002) for obesity. Sex-specific associations with overweight or obesity were observed for some antibiotics.Conclusion: Some antibiotics in urines were found to be associated with an increased risk of adult overweight or obesity. In view of the cross-sectional design of our study, longitudinal studies are warranted to further test these findings.