| Title: | Hospital-treated infectious diseases and the risk of epilepsy in older age |
| Journal: | Nature Aging |
| Published: | 4 Nov 2025 |
| Pubmed: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41188601/ |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-025-01005-x |
| URL: | https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-025-01005-x.pdf |
Publication 19039
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Abstract
Infectious diseases are known to trigger acute seizures, but their long-term impact on epilepsy, especially in later life, is unclear. We conducted nested case-control studies of newly diagnosed epilepsy after age 50 in the UK Biobank (2,486 cases; 12,430 controls) and Swedish registers (56,266 cases; 281,330 controls), including a sibling comparison. Previous hospital-treated infections were associated with a persistently elevated epilepsy risk (for example, >10 years after infection: odds ratio (OR) 1.68, 95% confidence interval: 1.39-2.04 in UK Biobank; 1.46, 1.41-1.51 in Sweden). Associations were robust in sibling analyses and across infection types and sites. We further found that infections, together with a high cardiovascular genetic risk (OR 2.62, 2.22-3.08), a high cardiovascular risk score (OR 3.14, 2.68-3.68) or cardiovascular disease history (OR 4.77, 4.64-4.91), were associated with the highest epilepsy risk. Hospital-treated infections exert prolonged impact on epilepsy risk in older age, especially when in combination with cardiovascular risk factors.</p>
15 Keywords
- Aged
- Aged, 80 and over
- Cardiovascular Diseases
- Case-Control Studies
- Communicable Diseases
- Epilepsy
- Female
- Hospitalization
- Humans
- Male
- Middle Aged
- Registries
- Risk Factors
- Sweden
- United Kingdom
14 Authors
- Qiyuan Zhuang
- Yihan Hu
- Dang Wei
- Chenxi Qin
- Kejia Hu
- Junyi Zhang
- Lida Chen
- Zhelun Yang
- Weimin Ye
- Karin Wirdefeldt
- Xiang Zou
- Ying Mao
- Sara Hägg
- Fang Fang
1 Application
| Application ID | Title |
|---|---|
| 76517 | A Dynamic Network Approach for the Study of Human Phenotypes using UK Biobank |
Enabling scientific discoveries that improve human health