Abstract
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1980-0037.2016v18n5p509 The aim of this study was to analyze the association between diseases and chronic health conditions, multimorbidity and body mass index (BMI) in older adults from southern Brazil. Epidemiological cross-sectional study, with household basis was carried out with 343 older adults aged 60-79 years, selected by probability sampling and all aged 80 years or older (n=134). Hypertension, diabetes, cancer, chronic pulmonary diseases, coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, depression, history of falls and dependency in activities of the daily living were assessed by self-report. Associations between independent variables and BMI (outcome) were tested using simple and multiple linear regression. Participated in the study 270 women (73.2±8.8 years) and 207 men (73.3±9.0 years). After adjustment (age, education, living arrangement, smoking, alcohol consumption, waist circumference, cognitive status and all other disease and chronic health conditions), the associations identified were: hypertension with higher BMI values (β 3.43; 95%CI: 2.38 to 4.48), for women, and chronic pulmonary disease with lower BMI values (β -2.05; 95%CI: -3.50 to -0.60). There was a linear trend between number of diseases and BMI for both sexes. Conclusion: The results showed an independent association between specific chronic diseases and BMI. Monitoring of nutritional status in older adults is important to identify extreme BMI values, especially those with more than two diseases and chronic health conditions.
Highlights
Population aging is the largest demographic phenomenon of the twentyfirst century and one of the main problems of this process is the high prevalence of chronic noncommunicable diseases, account for most morbidity and mortality burden in Brazil[1]
Associations between chronic health conditions and body mass index (BMI) are checked for specific diseases using BMI cutoff values used in epidemiological surveillance[9] or determined by roc curve[10]
For trend analysis between mean BMI values and number of chronic diseases, multiple linear regression adjusted for age, education, living arrangement, smoking and cognitive status was used
Summary
Population aging is the largest demographic phenomenon of the twentyfirst century and one of the main problems of this process is the high prevalence of chronic noncommunicable diseases, account for most morbidity and mortality burden in Brazil[1]. Data from the Brazilian National Survey of Household Sample (PNAD 2008) showed that 5.9% of the population reported having three or more chronic diseases and the proportion increases with age. Along with the presence of diseases and / or other chronic health conditions, vulnerable nutritional status, identified by body mass index (BMI) is common among the elderly[6]. Both overweight and underweight are factors associated with morbidity and mortality in these individuals. The association of this indicator as a continuous variable in the context of multimorbididity has not been explored
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