Abstract 10120: Increased Stroke Mortality Among Lean Japanese

Abstract

Background: Several large cohort studies showed underweight was associated with an increased risk of death in Asians after major methodologic issues were addressed. We examined specific causes of death in lean Japanese of a general population. Methods: We studied 16,461 subjects (mean age 54±13 years, men 26%) who had the annual health checkup offered to adult citizens of Moriguchi city, Osaka, Japan in 1997. The subjects were divided into 5 groups according to body mass index (BMI) presented in the table. Proportional hazards regression analyses adjusted for age, sex, smoking status, drinking habit, history of CV disease, hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia were used to assess the association of BMI categories with mortality. Results: During a mean follow-up of 14.1±4.4 years, there were 1,939 deaths. Of those, there were 797 cancer deaths, 462 cardiovascular (CV) deaths including 114 coronary deaths, 156 stroke deaths with 88 ischemic stroke deaths. Hazard ratios (HR) relative to the BMI of 22.0-24.9 kg/m 2 group with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were presented in the table. Although underweight (<18.0 kg/m 2 ) was not associated with cancer deaths, it was significantly associated with CV deaths (HR=1.92, 95%CI=1.33 to 2.78, p=0.0005) and stroke deaths (HR=2.02, 95%CI=1.07 to 3.81, p=0.0295). Among stroke deaths, ischemic stroke deaths tended to be higher in the underweight group (HR=1.95, 95%CI=0.90 to 4.26, p=0.0926). Conclusions: In the general Japanese population, underweight was associated with higher stroke mortality.