Hospital-treated infectious diseases and the risk of epilepsy in older age
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.
Authors
- Zhixiao Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0353-094X)
- Luwei Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1042-2034)
- Kejia Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6680-8107)
- Dang Wei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1287-7929)
- Karin Wirdefeldt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5378-6364)
- Xiang Zou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8930-2926)
- Qiyuan Zhuang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5937-5024)
- Sara Hägg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2452-1500)
- Yihan Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8948-4376)
- Junyi Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0001-2971)
- Fang Fang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3310-6456)
- Weimin Ye (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6859-4648)
- Ying Mao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8055-115X)
- Chenxi Qin
Institutions
- JPMorgan Chase & Co (United States) (US)
- Fudan University (CN)
- Karolinska Institutet (SE)
- Huashan Hospital (CN)
- Hainan Medical University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Aging
- Published
- 2025-11-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-025-01005-x
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Epilepsy research and treatment
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.47
Funders
- Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Karolinska Institutet
- Vetenskapsrådet
- National Science and Technology Major Project
- Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science