Siblings and the risk of inflammatory bowel disease.
BACKGROUND
Environmental exposures in early life have been implicated in the aetiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Siblings are used as proxy markers to characterize patterns of exposure relevant to the risk of IBD.


METHODS
Some 15,823 patients with ulcerative colitis and 12,668 with Crohn disease from the Swedish In-patient Register were compared with 79,546 and 63,035 controls, respectively, in a case-control study. Multiple logistic regression was used to investigate associations with older and younger siblings, and adjustment was made for sex, year of birth, mother's age, region and, additionally, father's social class.


RESULTS
Older siblings are associated with a graded increased risk for ulcerative colitis (P for trend <0.001) and an adjusted odds ratio of 1.15 (95% CI 1.07-1.24) for three or more older siblings. Younger siblings are associated with a graded decreased risk for Crohn disease (P for trend <0.001) with an adjusted odds ratio of 0.83 (0.76-0.90) for three or more younger siblings. The greatest protective association with Crohn disease was seen for younger siblings born within 2 years of the subject. Older maternal age is independently associated with a decreased risk of Crohn disease, with P for trend <0.001. Additional adjustment for social class did not substantially alter the results.


CONCLUSIONS
Having siblings is associated with the risk and phenotype of developing IBD, possibly through their influence on patterns of antigenic exposure in early life. The association of maternal age with Crohn disease may reflect age-related changes in maternal immune profile.
Montgomery
S M
SM
Enheten för klinisk epidemiologi, Institutionen för medicin vid Karolinska sjukhuset, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Scott.Montgomery@medks.ki.se
Lambe
M
M
Wakefield
A J
AJ
Pounder
R E
RE
Ekbom
A
A
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003093:Colitis, Ulcerative / Q000453:epidemiology; D003424:Crohn Disease / Q000453:epidemiology; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D008423:Maternal Age; D008875:Middle Aged; D012042:Registries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D035781:Siblings