2066 A new study on Body Mass Index at MidLife

Yes, now that the early boomers have turned 60, we'll be seeing a lot more of this. There are a few things I was surprised to find in JAMA's January 11 article "Midlife Body Mass Index and Hospitalization and Mortality in Older Age."

Even if you started out fit and trim with no risk factors for coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease or diabetes, if you packed it on in mid-life, you were in trouble by age 65, with more hospitalizations and/or early death. The study was done in the Chicago area with 17,643 men and women with a baseline for 1967-1973 with review of hospitalization and mortality beginning at 65.

"Whether excess weight has an impact on cardiovascular outcomes beyond its effects on established risk factors is controversial. Using data from a prospective cohort study of individuals who were free of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or major electrocardiographic abnormalities at baseline, Yan and colleagues assessed the relationship of midlife body mass index with morbidity and mortality outcomes in older age. The authors found that compared with persons who were normal weight at midlife, overweight or obese persons with similar cardiovascular risk factors had higher risks of hospitalization and mortality from coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes when aged 65 or older." JAMA This week

Since I've been within 15 lbs of 130 (ranging from 115 after my first pregnancy to 145 after age 64), I'm trying to figure out where I fall in this range. I'm not "normal weight" now, but I was at mid-life and baseline. Well, maybe there will be another study for us late bloomers.

Another thing I found interesting was the education level of the participants. I didn't see any mention of this in the text (just the charts), but only among the low risk people (there were 5 risk categories each with normal, overweight and obese groups) did the normal weight participants have the highest mean of education. In all the other categories the overweight (but not obese) had slightly higher levels of education than the normal or the obese.

Body Mass Index
Obesity