Heavy body shape across lifespan associated with highest mortality

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-05/b-hbs050416.php

Public Release: 4-May-2016
Heavy body shape across lifespan associated with highest mortality
BMJ

People who are lean for life have the lowest mortality, while those with a heavy body shape from childhood up to middle age have the highest mortality, reveal findings of a large study published in The BMJ today.

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Among the cohort, five distinct body shapes were identified from age 5 to 50: lean-stable, lean-moderate increase, lean-marked increase, medium-stable/increase, and heavy-stable/increase (see figure 1).

Results showed that people who remained stably lean throughout life had the lowest mortality, with a 15-year risk of death being 11.8% in women, and 20.3% in men.

Those who reported being heavy as children and who remained heavy or gained further weight, especially during middle age, had the highest mortality, with a 15-year risk of death being 19.7% in women and 24.1% in men.

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Lowest mortality was found in the BMI range 22-23 among healthy never smokers, excluding people with prevalent diseases.

And among people who never smoked, and studied over a longer duration of follow up of more than 20 and 25 years, where the influence of prediagnostic weight loss would be less, the lowest mortality was observed in the BMI range 20-22.

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