Healthcare

According to the researchers, it is less known of Waist Circumference (WC; a measure of abdominal obesity) may had linked to all-cause mortality regardless of body mass index (BMI) or at very high levels of WC.

In the August issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, the study authors, Eric J. Jacobs, PhD, from the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, Georgia, and colleagues, said that WC associated with higher mortality independent of BMI in older adults.

The investigators evaluated among 48,500 men and 56,343 women (both the age at least 50 years old) from the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort between 1997 and the end of follow-up, 2006.
In that cohort study found 9315 men and 5332 women were death.

The results of their investigation after adjustment for BMI and other risk factors, they found that mortality risk was more than doubled for very high levels of WC.
The detail as following;
- the relative risk (RR) of mortality in men was 2.02 for WC 120 cm or larger compared with WC less than 90 cm,
- the RR of mortality in women was 2.36 for WC 100 cm or larger compared with WC less than 75 cm.

Also, within all categories of BMI, WC was positively associated with mortality.
A 10-cm increase in WC in men was associated with;
- RRs of 1.16 for normal weight (BMI; 18.5 kg/m2 to <25 kg/m2),
- RRs of 1.28 for overweight (BMI; 25 kg/m2 to <30 kg/m2),
- RRs of 1.21 for obese (BMI; =30 kg/m2).
A 10-cm increase in WC in women was associated with;
- RRs of 1.25 for normal weight,
- RRs of 1.15 for overweight, and
- RRs of 1.13 for obese BMI.

Despite several limitation in the study such as reliance on self-report and measurement for WC, observational design, possible confounding by factors associated with both larger WC and higher mortality, and possibly low generalizability because all study participants were 50 years or older, and nearly all were white, the authors write, “Results from this large prospective study emphasize the importance of WC as a risk factor for mortality in older adults, regardless of whether the BMI is categorized as normal, overweight, or obese.”

The authors suggest that regardless of weight, avoiding gain in WC may reduce risk of premature mortality.