Body-Mass Index and Mortality in Korean Men and Women
Sun Ha Jee, Ph.D., Jae Woong Sull, Ph.D., Jungyong Park, Ph.D., Sang-Yi Lee, M.D., Heechoul Ohrr, M.D., Eliseo Guallar, M.D., Dr.P.H., and Jonathan M. Samet, M.D.
Background Obesity is associated with diverse health risks,but the role of body weight as a risk factor for death remainscontroversial.
Methods We examined the association between body weight andthe risk of death in a 12-year prospective cohort study of 1,213,829Koreans between the ages of 30 and 95 years. We examined 82,372deaths from any cause and 48,731 deaths from specific diseases(including 29,123 from cancer, 16,426 from atherosclerotic cardiovasculardisease, and 3362 from respiratory disease) in relation to thebody-mass index (BMI) (the weight in kilograms divided by thesquare of the height in meters).
Results In both sexes, the average baseline BMI was 23.2, andthe rate of death from any cause had a J-shaped associationwith the BMI, regardless of cigarette-smoking history. The riskof death from any cause was lowest among patients with a BMIof 23.0 to 24.9. In all groups, the risk of death from respiratorycauses was higher among subjects with a lower BMI, and the riskof death from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or cancerwas higher among subjects with a higher BMI. The relative riskof death associated with BMI declined with increasing age.
Conclusions Underweight, overweight, and obese men and womenhad higher rates of death than men and women of normal weight.The association of BMI with death varied according to the causeof death and was modified by age, sex, and smoking history.
Source Information
From the Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion, Graduate School of Public Health, Yonsei University, Seoul (S.H.J., J.P.); the National Health Insurance Corporation, Seoul (S.-Y.L.); the Department of Health Policy and Management, College of Medicine, Cheju National University, Jeju (S.-Y.L.); the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul (H.O.) — all in Korea; and the Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore (S.H.J., J.W.S., E.G., J.M.S.).
Address reprint requests to Dr. Jee at the Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion, Graduate School of Public Health, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, or at jsunha{at}yumc.yonsei.ac.kr.
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