Thigh-hip ratio is significantly associated with all-cause mortality among Japanese community-dwelling men

Abstract

Anthropometric evaluation is a simple yet essential indicator of muscle and fat mass when studying life prognosis in aging. This study aimed to investigate the contributions of anthropometric measurements, independent of body mass index, to measures of all-cause mortality. We examined data for 1,704 participants from the 2014 Nomura Cohort Study who attended follow-ups for the subsequent eight years (follow-up rate: 93.0%). Of these, 765 were male (aged 69 ± 11 years) and 939 were female (aged 69 ± 9 years). The Japanese Basic Resident Registry provided data on adjusted relative hazards for all-cause mortality. The data were subjected to a Cox regression analysis, wherein the time variable was age and the risk factors were gender, age, anthropometric index, smoking habits, drinking habits, exercise habits, cardiovascular history, hypertension, lipid levels, diabetes, renal function, and serum uric acid. Of the total number of participants, 158 (9.3%) were confirmed to have died, and of these, 92 were male (12.0% of all male participants) and 66 were female (7.0% of all female participants). The multivariable Cox regression analysis revealed that a smaller thigh–hip ratio predicted eight-year all-cause mortality in male participants, but only baseline body mass index was associated with all-cause mortality in female participants. Thigh–hip ratio is a useful predictor of death in Japanese community-dwelling men.