Findings of periodic health examination and risk of mortality in a cohort of elderly people in Taiwan

Aim: Comprehensive periodic health examination of elderly people is popular in Taiwan. The purpose of this study is to identify predictors of mortality of the elderly from the findings of their periodic health examination. Methods: From the period 1996–1999, 4794 elderly people aged 65 and older underwent periodic health examination in our institution. The status of survival of these 4794 subjects up to 31 December, 2000 was ascertained. Cox proportional hazard regression was performed to estimate the hazard ratio of mortality of the findings in the health examination. Results: The median follow-up time was 34 months. In the multivariate model, significant findings associated with increased mortality included: smoking daily (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.401; 95 % CI = 1.000– 1.963); intake less than three dishes of vegetables and two fruits per day (HR: 1.434; 95 % CI = 1.049– 1.960); urine protein> 0.3 g/L (HR: 2.184; 95 % CI = 1.399–3.411); low hemoglobin (HR: 1.924; 95% CI = 1.423–2.602); serum albumin < 40 g/L (HR: 2.108; 95 % CI = 1.514–2.935); globulin> 35 g/L (HR: 1.421; 95 % CI = 1.034–1.952); serum aspartate transaminase level> 40 IU/L (HR:2.468, 95 % CI = 1.571– 3.878); and blood urea nitrogen level> 7.8 mmol/L (HR: 1.427; 95 % CI = 1.025–1.988). Conclusions: Lifestyle, dietary habit and some findings of the blood and urine tests done in the periodic health examination were found to be significantly associated with the mortality of people aged 65 years or older in Taiwan