Victims of Chinese famine in early life have increased risk of metabolic syndrome in adulthood.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the association of exposure to the Chinese famine during early life with metabolic syndrome risk in adults.

METHODS: There were 7,915 participants from Dongfeng-Tongji cohort were included in the present study. Participants were classified as non-exposed group, fetal exposed group, early childhood-, mid childhood-, and late childhood-exposed groups, respectively. Metabolic syndrome was defined according to International Diabetes Foundation criteria (2005). Logistic regression model was used to explore the association between famine exposure in early life and metabolic syndrome risk in adults.

RESULTS: The metabolic syndrome prevalence in non-, fetal-, early childhood-, mid childhood-, and late childhood- exposed groups were 25.2%, 26.9%, 30.3%, 32.7%, and 32.7%, respectively. Compared with non-exposed group, participants exposed to famine in the fetal (0.96, 95% CI: 0.77-1.20), early childhood (1.24, 95% CI: 1.01-1.52), mid childhood (1.39, 95% CI: 1.13-1.72), and late childhood (1.33, 95% CI: 1.08-1.63) had higher metabolic syndrome prevalence risk in adults after adjustment for potential confounders (P for trend < 0.0001). In gender-specific analyses, women exposed to famine in early childhood (1.26, 95% CI: 1.02-1.56), mid childhood (1.43, 95% CI: 1.14-1.78), and late childhood (1.47, 95% CI: 1.18-1.84) had higher metabolic syndrome prevalence risk than non-exposed women (P for trend < 0.0001). There was a famine-gender interaction on metabolic syndrome prevalence risk (P for interaction = 0.0001).

CONCLUSION: Results in the present study indicated that exposure to famine in early life increases the risk of metabolic syndrome in adulthood, particularly in women.