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Joints effects of BMI and smoking on mortality of all-causes, CVD, and cancer

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Abstract

Obesity, underweight, and smoking are associated with an increased mortality. We investigated the joint effects of body mass index and smoking on all-cause and cause-specific mortality. Data of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1988–1994) including mortality follow-up until 2011 were used (n = 17,483). Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for all-cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cancer mortality with BMI, smoking, and their combinations as exposure, stratified by sex. Normal weight never smokers were considered as reference group. Compared to normal weight never smokers, obese and underweight current smokers were the two combinations with the highest mortality from all-causes, CVD, and cancer. Among underweight current smokers, the HR of death from all-causes was 3.49 (95% CI 2.42–5.02) and for obese current smokers 2.76 (2.12–3.58). All-cause mortality was particularly high in women who were underweight and current smoker (3.88 [2.47–6.09]). CVD mortality risk was the highest among obese current smokers (3.33 [2.98–5.33]). Cancer mortality risk was the highest among underweight current smokers (5.28 [2.68–10.38]). Obese current smokers in the middle age group (between 40 and 59 years old) had the highest risk of all-cause mortality (4.48 [2.94–7.97]). No statistically significant interaction between BMI and smoking on all-cause and cause-specific mortality was found. The current study indicates that obesity and underweight in combination with smoking may emerge as a serious public health problem. Hence, public health messages should stress the increased mortality risk for smokers who are underweight or obese. Also, health messages regarding healthy lifestyle are aimed at maintaining a healthy body weight rather than just “losing weight” and at not starting smoking at all.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute, University of Zurich, Hirschengraben 84, 8001, Zurich, Switzerland

    Eefje Luijckx, Tina Lohse, David Faeh & Sabine Rohrmann

  2. Health Division - Physiotherapy, Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH), Bern, Switzerland

    Eefje Luijckx

  3. Health Division - Nutrition and Dietetics, Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH), Bern, Switzerland

    David Faeh

Authors
  1. Eefje Luijckx
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  2. Tina Lohse
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  3. David Faeh
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  4. Sabine Rohrmann
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Contributions

EL collected, analyzed, and interpreted study data. EL wrote the first draft of the manuscript. SR, TL, and DF critically revised and improved the content of the manuscript. All authors read and improved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sabine Rohrmann.

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Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all participants when participating in NHANES III.

Ethical approval

The protocols for the conduct of NHANES III were approved by the institutional review board of the National Center for Health Statistics, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Data sharing statement

No additional unpublished data from the study are available. However, NHANES data are publically available.

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Luijckx, E., Lohse, T., Faeh, D. et al. Joints effects of BMI and smoking on mortality of all-causes, CVD, and cancer. Cancer Causes Control 30, 549–557 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-019-01160-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-019-01160-8

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