title: Body height, body mass index, and fatal hip fractures: 16 years' follow-up of 674,000 Norwegian women and men.
abstract: We studied the relations between body height, body mass index (BMI), and fatal hip fractures prospectively in a large, representative population. During the years 1963-1975, a nationwide compulsory mass x-ray examination including standardized height and weight measurements took place in Norway covering all persons age 15 years and older. In the study presented here, we selected women (N = 357,807) and men (N = 316,041) age 50-89 years at screening. We matched the file to the national death register containing causes of death throughout 1991; we defined cases as persons with hip fracture mentioned on their death certificates. During an average follow-up of 16.4 years, we identified a total of 6,087 fatal hip fractures in the study population. There was a distinct inverse relation between BMI and fatal hip fracture, with an age-adjusted relative risk (RR) in the three highest vs the low quartile of 0.68 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.63-0.72] in women and 0.57 (95% CI = 0.52-0.62) in men. The risk of fatal hip fractures increased slightly with increasing body height [RR = 1.10 (95% CI = 1.04-1.16) in women and RR = 1.08 (95% CI = 1.01-1.16) in men per 10-cm increase in body height]. This study indicates that low BMI is an important risk factor for fatal hip fractures and that body height has a weak, positive association.
authors.affiliation: National Health Screening Service, Aker Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: H E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tverdal
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Falch
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001827:Body Height; D015992:Body Mass Index; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006620:Hip Fractures / Q000401:mortality*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009664:Norway / Q000453:epidemiology; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D017678:Sex Distribution