From: Doug Skrecky (oberon@vcn.bc.ca)
Date: Wed Aug 25 1999 - 06:02:54 MDT
Chubby old people seem to do well in the longevity sweapstakes.
This seems to fit in with other research which associates risk factors
such as low cardioresipratory fitness, and high blood pressure as being
responsible for higher mortality in young people at either end of the BMI
scale. These would tend to die early, yielding mostly survivors that are
relatively healthy regardless of BMI.
The "U" or "J" relation found in most studies relating human mortality
with body weight, thus tends to naturally flatten out at progressively
older ages.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Authors
Allison DB. Gallagher D. Heo M. Pi-Sunyer FX. Heymsfield SB.
Institution
Obesity Research Center, St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Center, Columbia
University College of Physicians & Surgeons, NY 10025, USA.
Title
Body mass index and
all-cause mortality among people age 70 and over: the
Longitudinal Study of Aging.
Source
International Journal of Obesity & Related Metabolic Disorders.
21(6):424-31, 1997 Jun.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To assess the relationship between body
mass index (BMI; kg/m2) and
mortality in a large nationally representative sample of US
adults over age 70 years. DESIGN: Prospective longitudinal cohort study, the
Longitudinal Study of Aging (LSOA). Subjects were all those 7260 black and
white people (2769 men, 4491 women) initially interviewed in 1984 for whom
height and weight were available. These subjects were followed through to
1990. MEASUREMENTS: Measurements included self-reported height and weight,
date of death if subjects died, sex, age, race, measures of socio-economic
status, number of living first degree relatives, and responses to questions
asking whether the subject had retired due to poor health, had difficulty
eating, worried about their health, and felt their health was worse than
during the prior year. Smoking status was not assessed. RESULTS: When
analyzed via Cox proportional hazard regression, the relationship between BMI
and mortality, represented by means of hazard ratio, was
clearly U-shaped for both men and women. The base of the curves was fairly
wide suggesting that a broad range of BMIs are well tolerated by older
adults. The minimum mortality (estimated from the fitted
proportional hazard models) occurred at a BMI of approximately 31.7 for women
and 28.8 for men. The results were essentially unchanged, if analyses were
weighted, if various disease states were controlled for, and if apparently
unhealthy subjects were excluded. CONCLUSIONS: The finding of the relatively
high BMI (27-30 for men, 30-35 for women) associated with minimum hazard in
persons older than seventy years supports some previously documented findings
and opposes others and, if confirmed in future research, has implications for
public health and clinical recommendations.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:04:53 MST