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Elderly People With Low Body Weight May Have Subtle Low‐grade Inflammation
Author(s) -
Nakajima Kei,
Yamaoka Hiroko,
Morita Kumiko,
Ebata Midori,
Eguchi Satoko,
Muneyuki Toshitaka,
Munakata Hiromi
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
obesity
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.438
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1930-739X
pISSN - 1930-7381
DOI - 10.1038/oby.2008.596
Subject(s) - medicine , waist , body mass index , inflammation , systemic inflammation , obesity , abdominal obesity , body weight , weight loss , circumference , gerontology , demography , geometry , mathematics , sociology
Low‐grade inflammation, which plays important roles in the development of fatal diseases, is commonly observed in obese people. However, this has not been evaluated in lean people, who have relatively increased mortality risk compared with people of normal weight. Here, we elucidate the association between systemic low‐grade inflammation and low body weight, with particular emphasis on aging. We examined the relationship between circulating C‐reactive protein (CRP) and BMI in a cross‐sectional study of 2,675 apparently healthy adults who had undergone a medical check‐up. Overall, subjects with low BMI (<21.0 kg/m 2 , n = 585) showed a favorable cardiovascular profile without being undernourished. In the elderly (≥55 years old), logarithmic CRP (LogCRP) showed a sigmoid curve against BMI with a base at BMI 21.0–22.9 kg/m 2 , but not against waist circumference (WC), even in nonsmokers. In contrast, in middle‐aged people, LogCRP showed an almost linear relationship with both BMI and WC. LogCRP levels in elderly nonsmokers with low BMI, but not normal or high BMI, were significantly higher than those in middle‐aged with corresponding BMI ( P < 0.05). After adjustment for age, sex, smoking status, and weight change over the past 2 years, the adjusted means of LogCRP still had a similar sigmoid curve against BMI in the elderly. These results suggest that elderly people with low body weight may have subtle low‐grade inflammation irrespective of a favorable cardiovascular risk, which remains to be confirmed in further studies.