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      Waist-to-Height Ratio Is More Predictive of Years of Life Lost than Body Mass Index

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          Abstract

          Objective

          Our aim was to compare the effect of central obesity (measured by waist-to-height ratio, WHtR) and total obesity (measured by body mass index, BMI) on life expectancy expressed as years of life lost (YLL), using data on British adults.

          Methods

          A Cox proportional hazards model was applied to data from the prospective Health and Lifestyle Survey (HALS) and the cross sectional Health Survey for England (HSE). The number of years of life lost (YLL) at three ages (30, 50, 70 years) was found by comparing the life expectancies of obese lives with those of lives at optimum levels of BMI and WHtR.

          Results

          Mortality risk associated with BMI in the British HALS survey was similar to that found in US studies. However, WHtR was a better predictor of mortality risk. For the first time, YLL have been quantified for different values of WHtR. This has been done for both sexes separately and for three representative ages.

          Conclusion

          This study supports the simple message “Keep your waist circumference to less than half your height”. The use of WHtR in public health screening, with appropriate action, could help add years to life.

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          Most cited references12

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          A New Body Shape Index Predicts Mortality Hazard Independently of Body Mass Index

          Background Obesity, typically quantified in terms of Body Mass Index (BMI) exceeding threshold values, is considered a leading cause of premature death worldwide. For given body size (BMI), it is recognized that risk is also affected by body shape, particularly as a marker of abdominal fat deposits. Waist circumference (WC) is used as a risk indicator supplementary to BMI, but the high correlation of WC with BMI makes it hard to isolate the added value of WC. Methods and Findings We considered a USA population sample of 14,105 non-pregnant adults ( ) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2004 with follow-up for mortality averaging 5 yr (828 deaths). We developed A Body Shape Index (ABSI) based on WC adjusted for height and weight: ABSI had little correlation with height, weight, or BMI. Death rates increased approximately exponentially with above average baseline ABSI (overall regression coefficient of per standard deviation of ABSI [95% confidence interval: – ]), whereas elevated death rates were found for both high and low values of BMI and WC. ( – ) of the population mortality hazard was attributable to high ABSI, compared to ( – ) for BMI and ( – ) for WC. The association of death rate with ABSI held even when adjusted for other known risk factors including smoking, diabetes, blood pressure, and serum cholesterol. ABSI correlation with mortality hazard held across the range of age, sex, and BMI, and for both white and black ethnicities (but not for Mexican ethnicity), and was not weakened by excluding deaths from the first 3 yr of follow-up. Conclusions Body shape, as measured by ABSI, appears to be a substantial risk factor for premature mortality in the general population derivable from basic clinical measurements. ABSI expresses the excess risk from high WC in a convenient form that is complementary to BMI and to other known risk factors.
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            Dynamic Association of Mortality Hazard with Body Shape

            Background A Body Shape Index (ABSI) had been derived from a study of the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2004 mortality data to quantify the risk associated with abdominal obesity (as indicated by a wide waist relative to height and body mass index). A national survey with longer follow-up, the British Health and Lifestyle Survey (HALS), provides another opportunity to assess the predictive power for mortality of ABSI. HALS also includes repeat observations, allowing estimation of the implications of changes in ABSI. Methods and Findings We evaluate ABSI z score relative to population normals as a predictor of all-cause mortality over 24 years of follow-up to HALS. We found that ABSI is a strong indicator of mortality hazard in this population, with death rates increasing by a factor of 1.13 (95% confidence interval, 1.09–1.16) per standard deviation increase in ABSI and a hazard ratio of 1.61 (1.40–1.86) for those with ABSI in the top 20% of the population compared to those with ABSI in the bottom 20%. Using the NHANES normals to compute ABSI z scores gave similar results to using z scores derived specifically from the HALS sample. ABSI outperformed as a predictor of mortality hazard other measures of abdominal obesity such as waist circumference, waist to height ratio, and waist to hip ratio. Moreover, it was a consistent predictor of mortality hazard over at least 20 years of follow-up. Change in ABSI between two HALS examinations 7 years apart also predicted mortality hazard: individuals with a given initial ABSI who had rising ABSI were at greater risk than those with falling ABSI. Conclusions ABSI is a readily computed dynamic indicator of health whose correlation with lifestyle and with other risk factors and health outcomes warrants further investigation.
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              Comparison of various surrogate obesity indicators as predictors of cardiovascular mortality in four European populations.

              Body mass index (BMI) is the most commonly used surrogate marker for evaluating the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality in relation to general obesity, while abdominal obesity indicators have been proposed to be more informative in risk prediction. A prospective cohort study consisting of 46 651 Europeans aged 24-99 years was conducted to investigate the relationship between CVD mortality and different obesity indicators including BMI, waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist-to-stature ratio (WSR), A Body Shape Index (ABSI) and waist-to-hip-to-height ratio (WHHR). Hazard ratio (HR) was estimated by the Cox proportional hazards model using age as timescale, and compared using paired homogeneity test. During a median follow-up of 7.9 years, 3435 participants died, 1409 from CVD. All obesity indicators were positively associated with increased risk of CVD mortality, with HRs (95% confidence intervals) per standard deviation increase of 1.19 (1.12-1.27) for BMI, 1.29 (1.21-1.37) for WC, 1.28 (1.20-1.36) for WHR, 1.35 (1.27-1.44) for WSR, 1.34 (1.26-1.44) for ABSI and 1.34 (1.25-1.42) for WHHR in men and 1.37 (1.24-1.51), 1.49 (1.34-1.65), 1.45 (1.31-1.60), 1.52 (1.37-1.69), 1.32 (1.18-1.48) and 1.45 (1.31-1.61) in women, respectively. The prediction was stronger with abdominal obesity indicators than with BMI or ABSI (P<0.05 for all paired homogeneity tests). WSR appeared to be the strongest predictor among all the indicators, with a linear relationship with CVD mortality in both men and women. Abdominal obesity indicators such as WC, WHR, WSR and WHHR, are stronger predictors for CVD mortality than general obesity indicator of BMI.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1932-6203
                2014
                8 September 2014
                : 9
                : 9
                : e103483
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Ashwell Associates, Ashwell, UK and Visiting Research Fellow, Oxford Brookes University, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
                [2 ]Cass Business School, City University London, Faculty of Actuarial Science and Insurance, London, United Kingdom
                University of Alabama at Birmingham, United States of America
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: Author Margaret Ashwell is employed by Ashwell Associates. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

                Conceived and designed the experiments: MA LM JR BR. Performed the experiments: MA LM JR BR. Analyzed the data: MA LM JR BR. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MA LM JR BR. Wrote the paper: MA LM JR BR.

                Article
                PONE-D-13-47588
                10.1371/journal.pone.0103483
                4157748
                25198730
                ab0b764d-2825-40ba-8d71-d2f566472f55
                Copyright @ 2014

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 12 November 2013
                : 30 June 2014
                Page count
                Pages: 11
                Funding
                The initial work on this project was funded by a research grant from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in the UK. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Computational Biology
                Population Modeling
                Nutrition
                Physiology
                Physiological Parameters
                Body Weight
                Obesity
                Population Biology
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Epidemiology
                Clinical Epidemiology
                Lifecourse Epidemiology
                Research and Analysis Methods
                Research Design
                Clinical Research Design
                Cross-Sectional Studies
                Simulation and Modeling

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                Uncategorized

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