RESEARCH ARTICLE Prospective Cohort Study of Central Adiposity and Risk of Death in Middle Aged and Elderly Chinese

Asians have high prevalence of central obesity despite the low prevalence of general obe-sity. We evaluated associations between the central obesity measure, waist-hip ratio (WHR) with total and cause-specific mortality in middle-aged and elderly Chinese partici-pants. Data arise from two prospective population-based cohort studies: the Shanghai Men’s Health Study involves 53,425 men (participation rate = 74.0%), age 40–74 at base-line, and the Shanghai Women’s Health Study involves 63,017 women (participation rate = 92.7%), age 40–70 at baseline. Information on lifestyle factors and anthropometric mea-surements were taken at baseline interview. Vital status and causes of death were obtained via surveys and annual linkages to relevant Shanghai registries through December 31, 2011. After median follow-up time of 7.5 years for the Shanghai Men’s Health Study and 13.2 years for the Shanghai Women’s Health Study, there were 2,058 and 3,167 deaths, respectively. In models adjusted for BMI and other potential confounders, WHR was associ-ated with all-cause mortality; hazard ratios (HRs) (95 % confidence intervals) across the first to fifth quintile increased from 1 (Reference), 1.10 (0.95,1.27), 1.21 (1.04,1.41), 1.1