• 1. Evidence-Based Nursing Center, School of Nursing, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, P.R.China;
  • 2. Chinese Evidence-Based Medicine Center and Chinese Cochrane Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, P.R.China;
  • 3. Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou 730000, P.R.China;
  • 4. Evidence-Based Medicine Center, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, P.R.China;
  • 5. School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, P.R.China;
  • 6. Key Laboratory of Evidence-Based Medicine and Clinical Transformation in Gansu Province, Lanzhou 730000, P.R.China;
MA Bin, Email: kittymb2017@163.com
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Objective To systematically review the dose-response relationship between body mass index (BMI) and all-cause mortality in the elderly with frailty.Methods PubMed, EMbase, Web of Science, CNKI, VIP, WanFang Data, and CBM databases were electronically searched to collect cohort studies on the association of BMI and mortality in frail adults from inception to November 2019. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed risk bias of included studies; Stata 15.0 software was then used to analyze the dose-response analysis of BMI and mortality by restricted cubic spline function and generalized least squares method.Results A total of 4 cohort studies involving 12 861 frail adults were included. Meta-analysis results showed that compared with normal BMI, the frail elderly who were overweight (HR=0.80, 95%CI 0.74 to 0.88, P<0.001) and obese (HR=0.89, 95%CI 0.79 to 1.00, P=0.047) had lower all-cause mortality. The results of dose-response meta-analysis showed that there was a non-linear relationship between BMI and all-cause mortality in the elderly with frailty (P value for nonlinearity was 0.035), for which the elderly with frailty had a BMI nadir of 27.5-31.9 kg/m2. For linear trends, and when BMI was less than 27.5 kg/m2, the risk of all-cause death was reduced by 4% for every 1 kg/m2 increase in BMI (RR=0.96, 95%CI 0.90 to 1.03, P=0.320), when BMI was greater than 27.5 kg/m2, the risk of all-cause death increased by 4% for every 1 kg/m2 increase in BMI (RR=1.04, 95%CI 1.03 to 1.05, P<0.001).Conclusions There is a paradox of obesity and a significant nonlinear relationship between BMI and all-cause mortality in the frailty elderly, with the lowest all-cause mortality in the frailty elderly at BMI 27.5-31.9 kg/m2. Due to limited quality and quantity of the included studies, more high quality studies are needed to verify the above conclusions.

Citation: ZHAO Li, XU Chang, CHEN Fei, NIU Fang, GAO Qianqian, MEI Fan, HU Kaiyan, ZHAO Bing, ZHANG Weiyi, JIANG Yanbiao, MA Bin. Efficacy of BMI on all-cause mortality in frail elderly: a dose-response meta-analysis. Chinese Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, 2021, 21(6): 654-661. doi: 10.7507/1672-2531.202011027 Copy