BMI and Mortality: Results From a National Longitudinal Study of Canadian Adults

Orpana, Heather; Berthelot, J. M.; Kaplan, Mark S.; Feeny, David; McFarland, Bentson H.; Ross, Nancy A.

doi:10.1038/oby.2009.191

Cited by 185 publications

(158 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

134

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

“…Consistent with previous findings in the literature [20,21,23,26,56], our findings showed that higher degrees of obesity and underweight were associated with higher mortality. But deviating from Berrington de Gonzalez et al [20] and others [19,21], our BMI-mortality association approximated a U-shaped relationship with the lowest mortality rate in the overweight classification [23,24,26,56], while theirs approximated a J-shaped relationship with the lowest mortality rate in the normal-weight classification. This deviation can be explained by at least three reasons: (i) our study adjusted for ORDs, and hence, the nadir for death rates shifted slightly to the right in the range of overweight; (ii) only whites were included in the sample of Berrington de Gonzalez et al [20], eliminating ethnic variation, which is known to be a key determinant of obesity-mortality relationships; (iii) unobserved heterogeneity was not controlled for in their analyses; thus, the sample was selected toward survivors.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Life Years Lost Associated with Obesity-Related Diseases for U.S. Non-Smoking Adults.

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The objectives of this paper are to predict life years lost associated with obesity-related diseases (ORDs) for U.S. nonsmoking adults, and to examine the relationship between those ORDs and mortality. Data from the National Health Interview Survey, 1997-2000, were used. We employed mixed proportional hazard models to estimate the association between those ORDs and mortality and used simulations to project life years lost associated with the ORDs. We found that obesity-attributable comorbidities are associated with large decreases in life years and increases in mortality rates. The life years lost associated with ORDs is more marked for younger adults than older adults, for blacks than whites, for males than females, and for the more obese than the less obese. Using U.S. non-smoking adults aged 40 to 49 years as an example to illustrate percentage of the life years lost associated with ORDs, we found that the mean life years lost associated with ORDs for U.S. non-smoking black males aged 40 to 49 years with a body mass index above 40 kg/m 2 was 5.43 years, which translates to a 7.5% reduction in total life years. White males of the same age range and same degree of obesity lost 5.23 life years on average -a 6.8% reduction in total life years, followed by black females (5.04 years, a 6.5% reduction in life years), and white females (4.7 years, a 5.8% reduction in life years). Overall, ORDs increased chances of dying and lessened life years by 0.2 to 11.7 years depending on gender, race, BMI classification, and age.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Life Years Lost Associated with Obesity-Related Diseases for U.S. Non-Smoking Adults.

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…2 In white populations, ex tremely low and high BMI values were found to be associated with an excess risk of death in several nationwide studies. [3][4][5] In a more recent study involving 11 326 Canadians aged 25 years or older, Orpana and colleagues found that both underweight (BMI < 18.5) and severe obesity (BMI ≥ 35) were strong risk factors for all-cause mortality. 4 However, the optimal BMI values reported in the two Chinese studies 1,2 were higher than those reported in the white populations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[3][4][5] In a more recent study involving 11 326 Canadians aged 25 years or older, Orpana and colleagues found that both underweight (BMI < 18.5) and severe obesity (BMI ≥ 35) were strong risk factors for all-cause mortality. 4 However, the optimal BMI values reported in the two Chinese studies 1,2 were higher than those reported in the white populations. For example, on the basis of data from 19 prospective studies involving a total of 1.46 million white adults, Berrington de Gonzalez and colleagues found that BMI values of 22.5-24.9 were optimal in white adult populations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

What is the optimal body mass index for Chinese people?

Zhu

Tang

2011

Canadian Medical Association Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

I n this issue, Lin and colleagues report the findings of their study of the association between body mass index (BMI) and allcause mortality among Chinese adults aged 20 years or older. 1 Using data collected over 10 years for 124 456 participants, they ob served a U-shaped association between BMI and mortality. A BMI of 24.0-25.9 for men and women was associated with the lowest mortality and was deemed by the authors as optimal.Lin and colleagues' findings are consistent with those from previous studies in Chinese and white populations. In a cohort study involving 169 871 Chinese people aged 40 years or older, for example, Gu and colleagues found that a BMI of 24.0-24.9 was related to the lowest risk of death. 2 In white populations, ex tremely low and high BMI values were found to be associated with an excess risk of death in several nationwide studies. [3][4][5] In a more recent study involving 11 326 Canadians aged 25 years or older, Orpana and colleagues found that both underweight (BMI < 18.5) and severe obesity (BMI ≥ 35) were strong risk factors for all-cause mortality. 4 However, the optimal BMI values reported in the two Chinese studies 1,2 were higher than those reported in the white populations. For example, on the basis of data from 19 prospective studies involving a total of 1.46 million white adults, Berrington de Gonzalez and colleagues found that BMI values of 22.5-24.9 were optimal in white adult populations. 5 The findings in the study by Lin and colleagues are important because they seem to challenge the current definitions of overweight and obesity and are inconsistent with the pattern found in white populations and for the relation between BMI and chronic diseases, in particular cardiovascular diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines overweight as a BMI of 25 or higher and obesity as a BMI of 30 or higher. Lower BMI cutoff values for overweight and obesity have been suggested for Chinese populations by WHO and others. 6 For example, Zhou suggested cutoff values of 24 for overweight and 28 for obesity among Chinese adults. 7 Weng and colleagues reported that a BMI of 23 seemed more appropriate for identifying Chinese people at increased risk of obesity-related metabolic disorders. 8 However, according to the findings by Lin and colleagues 1 and by Gu and colleagues, 2 these BMI values used to define overweight fall clearly in the range of optimal values. Is there sufficient evidence to consider raising the BMI cutoff for overweight and obesity in the adult Chinese population?Over the past decades, the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes in China has climbed to a level almost equal to that in developed countries. The prevalence of overweight and obesity, although still lower than that in developed countries, is increasing rapidly. For example, from 1992 to 2002, the prevalence of overweight in China increased by 38.6%, and the prevalence of obesity by 80.6%. 9 In 2002, the average BMI among Chinese adults was reported to be a few units lower than that among white ...

show abstract

“…Obesity not only puts individuals at increased risk of death from numerous causes (Flegal, Graubard, Williamson, & Gail, 2007;Orpana et al, 2010), but it also poses economic hardships on individuals and business alike. As an example, obese individuals pay an average of 42% more for health care expenses than normal-weight individuals, and insurance agencies such as Medicare incur over $1,000 more in costs for obese than normalweight patients (Finkelstein, Trogdon, Cohen, & Dietz, 2009).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Motivating exercise: The interactive effect of general action goals and past behavior on physical activity

Hepler¹,

Wang²

2011

PsycEXTRA Dataset

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although exercise is recognized as a powerful tool to combat obesity, remarkably few US adults pursue adequate amounts of exercise, with one major impediment being a lack of motivation for active behaviors. Recent empirical work has demonstrated that behavior can be guided by goals to be generally active or inactive. In the present paper, an experiment is presented in which participants played or observed a video game, were primed with action or inaction goals, and practiced a stretching exercise for as long as desired. Exposure to environmental action cues led to increased time spent exercising. This effect was moderated by past behavior, such that individuals who had just engaged in an active task (played a videogame) were insensitive to attempts to motivate general action. This suggests that the effectiveness of attempts to motivate activity ("just do it", "be active") hinges on the recent past-behavior of the targeted individuals. An implication of this work is that participation in certain leisure activities, such as playing videogames, may be causally related to a lack of motivation for exercise.

show abstract

BMI and Mortality: Results From a National Longitudinal Study of Canadian Adults

Cited by 185 publications

References 20 publications

Life Years Lost Associated with Obesity-Related Diseases for U.S. Non-Smoking Adults.

Life Years Lost Associated with Obesity-Related Diseases for U.S. Non-Smoking Adults.

What is the optimal body mass index for Chinese people?

Motivating exercise: The interactive effect of general action goals and past behavior on physical activity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About