Body mass index and mortality in non-Hispanic black adults in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study - PubMed (original) (raw)

Body mass index and mortality in non-Hispanic black adults in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study

Yikyung Park et al. PLoS One. 2012.

Abstract

Background: Although the prevalence of obesity (body mass index, kg/m(2), BMI ≥30) is higher in non-Hispanic blacks than in non-Hispanic whites, the relation of BMI to total mortality in non-Hispanic blacks is not well defined.

Purpose: We investigated the association between BMI and total mortality in 16,471 non-Hispanic blacks in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, a prospective cohort of adults aged 50-71 years.

Methods: During an average of 13 years of follow-up, 2,609 deaths were identified using the Social Security Administration Death Master File and the National Death Index. Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate relative risks and two-sided 95% confidence intervals (CI), adjusting for potential confounders.

Results: Among individuals with no history of cancer or heart disease at baseline and had a BMI of 20 or greater, the relative risk for total death was 1.12 (95% CI:1.05, 1.19, for a 5-unit increase in BMI) in men and 1.09 (95% CI:1.03, 1.15) in women. Among never smokers with no history of cancer or heart disease at baseline, relative risks for total death for BMI 25-<30, 30-<35, 35-<40, and 40-50, compared with BMI 20-<25, were 1.27 (95% CI: 0.91, 1.78), 1.56 (95% CI: 1.07, 2.28), 2.48 (95% CI: 1.53, 4.05), and 2.80 (95% CI: 1.46, 5.39), respectively, in men and 0.78 (95% CI: 0.59, 1.04), 1.17 (95% CI: 0.88, 1.57), 1.35 (95% CI: 0.96, 1.90), and 1.93 (95% CI: 1.33, 2.81), respectively, in women.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that overweight is related to an increased risk of death in black men, but not in black women, while obesity is related to an increased risk of death in both black men and women. A large pooled analysis of existing studies is needed to systematically evaluate the association between a wide range of BMIs and total mortality in blacks.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1. Relative risk for total mortality in non-Hispanic black men and womena, b, c.

a. Subjects who did not have any prevalent cancer except non-melanoma skin cancer or heart disease at baseline b. Adjusted for age, education, marital status, smoking status, time since quitting smoking, number of cigarettes per day, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and menopausal hormone therapy use in women. Analysis of never smokers with no history of diseases at baseline was adjusted for same covariates except smoking status, time since quitting smoking, number of cigarettes per day. c. Men, 1,347 deaths in subjects with no history of disease and 288 deaths in never smokers with no history of diseases: Women, 1,262 deaths in subjects with no history of disease and 425 deaths in never smokers with no history of diseases.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Relative risk for total mortality per 5-unit increase in body mass index in non-Hispanic blacks, according to selected characteristicsa, b, c.

a. Subjects who did not have any prevalent cancer except non-melanoma skin cancer or heart disease at baseline. b. Adjusted for following variables, except for the stratification variable in each analysis: age, sex, education, marital status, smoking status, time since quitting smoking, number of cigarettes per day, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and menopausal hormone therapy use in women. c. Markers indicate the relative risks and horizontal lines indicate 95% confidence intervals. d. Number of death; p value for interaction: 0.55 for sex, 0.50 for age at baseline, <0.001 for smoking, 0.75 for physical activity, 0.40 for education, and 0.13 for alcohol.

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