Association of all-cause mortality with overweight and obesity using standard body mass index categories. A systematic review and meta-analysis

A selection of abstracts of clinically relevant papers from other journals. The abstracts on this page have been chosen and edited by John R. Radford.

Abstract

'...lower mortality among overweight and moderately obese patients' but higher mortality for those with a BMI >35.

Main

Flegal KM, Kit BK et al. JAMA 2013; 309: 71–82

There is increasing evidence that obesity is associated with periodontal disease (for review see J Dent Res 2012; 91: 5–7). When it comes to general health, NHS choices are unequivocal as to the deleterious effects of obesity. But what is the evidence? In this study, over seven thousand articles were identified and 97 studies were analysed with a sample size of more than 2.88 million individuals. Of note, overweight (BMI of 25–<30) 'was associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality' and those with Grade 1 obesity (BMI of 30–<35) did not have a higher mortality compared with those who were of normal weight.