Relationship between Helicobacter pylori infection and obesity in Chinese adults: A systematic review with meta-analysis

Obesity is highly prevalent worldwide. More and more studies have been conducted on the relationship between H. pylori infection and obesity or overweight. But the relationship between them is controversial in the literatures and there is no comprehensive evidence for the correlation.

To evaluate the prevalence of H. pylori infection in Chinese adult subjects who received routine physical examinations and the relationship between H. pylori and obesity.

Literatures on H. pylori infection and obesity in Chinese population were searched in online databases. Relevant data were extracted independently by two researchers and meta-analysis was performed by using Review manager 5.3 software.

22 articles were selected with a total sample size of 178033. The pooled prevalence of H. pylori was 42% (95%CI: 37% to 47%) and mean difference of BMI between subjects with and without H. pylori infection was 0.94 (95%CI: -0.04 to 1.91). 9 eligible studies with 27111 subjects were used to calculated pooled OR value because they contained obesity groups. The OR value showed that H. pylori-positive subjects tended to be obese at a risk of 1.20 (95% CI: 1.13 to 1.28).

In China, obesity has association with H. pylori infection. H. pylori infection may be one of the risk factors for obesity.