Associations between the risk of LUTS/BPH and the number and class of chronic diseases among middle-aged and elder men

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 14965 - 12
• Main Authors: Hu, Zhigang, Tian, Yufeng, Hu, Xiaoqiao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 29.04.2025; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 692/308; 692/4025; 692/699; Aged; CHARLS; China - epidemiology; Chronic Disease - epidemiology; Cross-Sectional Studies; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms - epidemiology; Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms - etiology; LUTS/BPH; Male; Middle Aged; Middle-aged and older men; Morbidity; multidisciplinary; Multimorbidity; Prostatic Hyperplasia - epidemiology; Risk Factors; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); China; Middle-aged and older men; LUTS/BPH; Morbidity; CHARLS
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-00057-8

We explored the associations between the risk of lower urinary tract symptoms suggestive of benign prostatic hyperplasia(LUTS/BPH) and the number and class of chronic diseases via cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.This study included 5197 men aged ≥ 45 years from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS) 2011 with a 7-year follow-up. We multidimensionally investigated the relationships between LUTS/BPH and multimorbidity via latent class analysis, generalized additive analysis and causal mediation analysis. Latent class analysis identified four morbidity classes as follows: minimal or least common diseases (class 1, N  = 4160, reference), dominant chronic lung diseases(class 2, N  = 152), multiple chronic diseases(class 3, N  = 387), and dominant heart diseases or risks(class 4, N  = 498). In both the cross-sectional and cohort studies, the risk of LUTS/BPH increased in a dose-dependent manner with the number of chronic diseases. All multivariable-adjusted analyses suggested that three other classes had significantly greater risks of LUTS/BPH than did class 1. In the cross-sectional study, the risk of LUTS/BPH increased by 3.19 times(95%CI: 2.41 to 4.21) in class 3 than in class 1. Causal mediation analyses revealed that depression significantly mediated the association between LUTS/BPH and multimorbidity. Our results suggest that both the number and class of chronic diseases significantly affect the risk of LUTS/BPH.