Pro-inflammatory diets worsen urinary incontinence risk in women

Adopting more pro-inflammatory diets can increase the risk of urinary incontinence (UI) among women younger than 65 years, a recent study has found.

The researchers cross-sectionally examined 13,441 women (aged 20–65 years), whose diets were scored using the dietary inflammatory index (DII) through 24-hour dietary recalls. UI was determined and categorized through self-reports.

DII scores varied widely, ranging from a maximally anti-inflammatory score of –4.81 to a maximally pro-inflammatory score of 5.33. Ultimately, 3,230 women (24.03 percent) reported having urge UI, 5,276 (39.25 percent) had stress UI, and 2,028 (15.09 percent) complained of mixed UI.

Taking DII as a continuous variable, logistic regression revealed that each unit increase in DII correlated significantly with an 8-percent increase in the likelihood of urge UI (odds ratio [OR], 1.08, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.06–1.11; p<0.001). A similar pattern was reported for stress (OR, 1.03, 95 percent CI, 1.01–1.06; p=0.011) and mixed (OR, 1.04, 95 percent CI, 1.00–1.07; p=0.034) UI.

Taken as quartiles, the highest, most pro-inflammatory category of DII likewise showed significantly elevated risks of urge (OR, 1.24, 95 percent CI, 1.07–1.44; p_trend=0.004), stress (OR, 1.14, 95 percent CI, 1.00–1.30; p_trend=0.021), and mixed (OR, 1.20, 95 percent CI, 1.02–1.43; p_trend=0.022) UI, relative to the lowest quartile.

“Future studies, especially those with prospective designs, are needed to strengthen our findings, explore the possible pathophysiological mechanism which could provide us more comprehensive understanding of onset and progression of UI and evaluate the potential therapeutic implications,” the researchers said.