Association between Body-Mass Index and Risk of Death in More Than 1 Million Asians

• Published in: The New England journal of medicine Vol. 364; no. 8; pp. 719 - 729
• Main Authors: Zheng, Wei, McLerran, Dale F, Rolland, Betsy, Zhang, Xianglan, Inoue, Manami, Matsuo, Keitaro, He, Jiang, Gupta, Prakash Chandra, Ramadas, Kunnambath, Tsugane, Shoichiro, Irie, Fujiko, Tamakoshi, Akiko, Gao, Yu-Tang, Wang, Renwei, Shu, Xiao-Ou, Tsuji, Ichiro, Kuriyama, Shinichi, Tanaka, Hideo, Satoh, Hiroshi, Chen, Yu, Chen, Chien-Jen, Yuan, Jian-Min, Yoo, Keun-Young, Ahsan, Habibul, Pan, Wen-Harn, Gu, Dongfeng, Pednekar, Mangesh Suryakant, Sauvaget, Catherine, Sasazuki, Shizuka, Sairenchi, Toshimi, Yang, Gong, Xiang, Yong-Bing, Nagai, Masato, Suzuki, Takeshi, Nishino, Yoshikazu, You, San-Lin, Koh, Woon-Puay, Park, Sue K, Shen, Chen-Yang, Thornquist, Mark, Feng, Ziding, Kang, Daehee, Boffetta, Paolo, Potter, John D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Waltham, MA Massachusetts Medical Society 24.02.2011
• Subjects: Asia - epidemiology; Asian Continental Ancestry Group; Biological and medical sciences; Body Mass Index; Cardiovascular disease; Cause of Death; Cohort Studies; Diabetes; Female; General aspects; Health risk assessment; Humans; Hypertension; Male; Medical sciences; Mortality; Obesity; Obesity - ethnology; Overweight - ethnology; Proportional Hazards Models; Risk; Studies; Asia; Medicine; Body mass index; Asiatic; Association; Mortality; Risk factor; Death; Risk
• ISSN: 0028-4793; 1533-4406; 1533-4406
• DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1010679

This study presents pooled analyses of the associations between BMI and risk of death in more than 1.1 million people from 19 cohorts in Asia after a mean follow-up of 9.2 years. Underweight was associated with a substantially increased risk of death in all Asian populations. Over the past few decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the prevalence of obesity in many countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 1 billion adults worldwide are overweight; of these, at least 300 million are obese. 1 A large number of epidemiologic studies have evaluated the associations between body weight and, more often, the body-mass index (BMI; the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) and a wide range of health outcomes. Obesity is associated with multiple chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, and several . . .