title: Body mass index and hospitalization in the elderly.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore the association between body mass index (BMI) and hospital usage in the elderly.
  
  
  METHODS
  Retrospective cohort study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (1992-94).
  
  
  METHODS
  Eight thousand seven hundred fifty-four noninstitutionalized individuals aged 65 to 100 without cancer at baseline and with available data on height and weight.
  
  
  METHODS
  BMI categorized by quintiles and by the 1998 National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) BMI classification. Poisson regression was used for multivariate analyses relating BMI to number of hospitalizations, adjusting for sex, age, smoking status, and heart disease.
  
  
  RESULTS
  During 20464 years of observation, 1199 individuals had 4096 hospitalizations and 34190 hospital days. Individuals in the lowest BMI quintile had a higher risk of hospitalization than those in the middle BMI quintile (RR=1.22; 95% confidence interval=1.1-1.4); stratified analyses by age revealed that this association remained for individuals aged 65 to 75. Using the NHLBI classification, underweight, overweight, mild obesity, and moderate to severe obesity were related to higher risk of hospitalizations than normal BMI in individuals aged 65 to 75. In individuals older than 75, underweight, overweight, and mild obesity were not related to a higher risk of hospitalizations. Moderate to severe obesity was related to a higher risk of hospitalization in individuals aged 75 to 89, which represented only 1.5% of the sample.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  BMI is not a predictor of hospitalization for most individuals aged 75 and older.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York 10032, USA.
authors.forename: José A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Luchsinger
authors.forename: Wei-nch
authors.initials: WN
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Olveen
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Carrasquillo
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rabinowitz
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shea
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000465:Algorithms; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015992:Body Mass Index; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009519:New York City / Q000453:epidemiology; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires