Another confusing study on BMI

[James Marusek 5,244]

A recent study out of Denmark shows some strange results on BMI and mortality.

Led by Dr. Shoalb Afzal from Copenhagen University and the Copenhagen University Hospital, a team of researchers analyzed data from three cohorts of the general Danish population. There were nearly 14,000 people from the Copenhagen City Heart Study (1976-78), another 9,500 from that study in 1991-94, and over 97,000 from the Copenhagen General Population Study in 2003-2013. All the participants were followed from their first enrollment in their respective study until November, 2014, or until they emigrated or died.

Typically the lowest risk of mortality is associated with a BMI in the lower to mid 20s. In the earliest Danish cohort, that nadir was 23.7. In the next one (1991-94) it was 24.6, and 27.0 for the last one. What could the progression in the nadir of the BMI vs. Mortality curve mean?

http://acsh.org/news/2016/05/16/the-case-of-the-creeping-bmi/

From my perspective, it appears to show that you do not want to be in the underweight category (especially if you are age 50 and male. You do not even want to be in the low side or mid range of the healthy category. Mortality range appears to be a little high there also. You want to be on the high side of healthy BMI to the overweight category. Mortality for males age 50 appears to be lowest here. You don't want to be in the obese or above category. You definitely don't want to be a smoker.

This is important information. Goal weight is an arbitrary number that we use after Weight Loss Surgery to set a goal. But it is somewhat arbitrary. After surgery, I hit my goal and then continued to drop the weight. Eventually my body found a weight it liked and that is where I landed. Then over time I lost a little more weight and decided to reanalyze my goal. I determined that I would like to be on the high side of normal (healthy) weight near a BMI of 24.2 (for me that was 150 pounds). In the old days, it was important to have a little extra fat on the body, so that when one became seriously ill or injured, this bit of extra fat was in storage to help the body through the recovery process. This study seems to support that decision. At least if I was a Dane.