This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Higher BMI raises risk for multimorbidity
In a large primary care cohort, the presence of multiple morbidities was found to be strongly associated with increasing BMI category and obesity.
“This study is the first to quantify the relationship between excess weight and multiple disease, but will reinforce the experience of many clinicians working with overweight patients. Health professionals working in primary care should be aware of the likelihood and implications of multiple diseases in obese patients, and measurement of BMI plus formal recognition of obesity should be used to identify patients at high risk of multimorbidity in clinical practice,” Helen P. Booth, MSc, of the department of primary care and public health sciences at King’s College London, and colleagues wrote.
Researchers used primary care electronic health records from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, a large database holding electronic health records from a collection of U.K. family practices. The database holds valid and representative longitudinal data for clinical, referral, test and prescribing records. Records used were recorded between 2005 and 2011. Registered patients aged at least 30 years were randomly selected (n=300,006). After excluding patients with no BMI data during the study period, 223,089 patients remained in the analysis. For all patients, at least 12 months of follow-up was included in the study.
The researchers examined the association of BMI with the prevalence of 11 conditions: coronary heart disease, stroke, asthma, sleep apnea, type 2 diabetes, all neoplasms, gallbladder, back pain, osteoarthritis, other joint problems and depression. Multimorbidity was defined as the co-occurrence of at least two of these 11 conditions affecting seven organ systems.
After completing a cross-sectional analysis, the researchers found that 32% of multimorbidity was attributable to overweight and obesity.
Disclosures: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.