Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Mar;25(3):295-304.
doi: 10.1016/j.numecd.2014.09.004. Epub 2014 Sep 20.

Cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in relation to various anthropometric measures of obesity in Europeans

X Song  1 , P Jousilahti  2 , C D A Stehouwer  3 , S Söderberg  4 , A Onat  5 , T Laatikainen  6 , J S Yudkin  7 , R Dankner  8 , R Morris  7 , J Tuomilehto  9 , Q Qiao  10 ; DECODE Study Group
Collaborators, Affiliations

Cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in relation to various anthropometric measures of obesity in Europeans

X Song et al. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2015 Mar.

Abstract

Background and aims: Cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in relation to various anthropometric measures of obesity is still controversial.

Methods and results: Body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), A Body Shape Index (ABSI) and waist-to-hip-to-height ratio (WHHR) were measured at baseline in a cohort of 46,651 European men and women aged 24-99 years. The relationship between anthropometric measures of obesity and mortality was evaluated by the Cox proportional hazards model with age as a time-scale and with threshold detected by a piecewise regression model. Over a median follow-up of 7.9 years, 2381 men and 1055 women died, 1071 men (45.0%) and 339 women (32.1%) from cardiovascular disease (CVD). BMI had a J-shaped relationship with CVD mortality, whereas anthropometric measures of abdominal obesity had positive linear relationships. BMI, WC and WHtR showed J-shaped associations with all-cause mortality, whereas WHR, ABSI and WHHR demonstrated positive linear relationships. Accordingly, a threshold value was detected at 29.29 and 30.98 kg/m(2) for BMI, 96.4 and 93.3 cm for WC, 0.57 and 0.60 for WHtR, 0.0848 and 0.0813 m(11/6) kg(-2/3) for ABSI with CVD mortality in men and women, respectively; 29.88 and 29.50 kg/m(2) for BMI, 104.3 and 105.6 for WC, 0.61 and 0.67 for WHtR, 0.95 and 0.86 for WHR, 0.0807 and 0.0765 for ABSI in men and women, respectively, and 0.52 for WHHR in women with all-cause mortality.

Conclusion: All anthropometric measures of abdominal obesity had positive linear associations with CVD mortality, whereas some showed linear and the others J-shaped relationships with all-cause mortality. BMI had a J-shaped relationship with either CVD or all-cause mortality. Thresholds detected based on mortality may help with clinical definition of obesity in relation to mortality.

Keywords: Abdominal obesity; All-cause mortality; Cardiovascular mortality.

PubMed Disclaimer

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources