ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2018
The role of obesity in exceptionally slow US mortality improvement.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 90 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
90 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- How much of the stalled mortality trends in Scotland and England can be attributed to obesity?BMJ open · 2022Pooled it
- The Effect of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure on Vascular Function and Cardiac Structure in Diabetes and Sleep Apnea. A Randomized Controlled Trial.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2020Trial
- Trial
- Lipid sensing and brain hormone receptors in food intake and glucose regulation.Nature reviews. Endocrinology · 2026Review
- Subtypes of Hypertension 2 to 7 Years After First Pregnancy.Hypertension (Dallas, Tex. : 1979) · 2026Observational
- Mapping Steroidogenic Perturbations Under Endocrine Disruptor Mixtures Across Demographic Subgroups: Structural and Metabolomic Insights.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Socioeconomic development, longevity and prevalence of obesity and overweight: The retrospective longitudinal analysis of international data.Dialogues in health · 2026Article
- Causes of Excess Deaths in the US Compared With Other High-Income Countries.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Article
- Aged Male Mice Remain Glucose Tolerant Despite Increased Energy Storage Efficiency Favoring Diet-Induced Obesity.Aging cell · 2026Article
- Potential and challenges for sustainable progress in human longevity.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Influence of weight perception on the evolution of body composition of adolescents under obesity treatment.European journal of pediatrics · 2026Article
- Domain-Specific Physical Activity and Obesity Risk among Black Men in the United States: Evidence of a Physical Activity Paradox.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Cumulative excess weight exposure over time and cardiovascular risk: A prospective cohort study.PloS one · 2026Article
- It is not what you weigh, it is how you present it: body size, attractiveness, physical functioning, and access to partnership and sexuality for older men and women.Social forces; a scientific medium of social study and interpretation · 2025Article
- Trends in chronic kidney disease-related mortality in older adults in the United States from 1999 to 2020: a cross-sectional study.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2025Article
- Catching up with stagnation: cause-specific dynamics of change in life expectancy at age 65 in the United States, Canada, and Latin America, 2000-2019.The Gerontologist · 2025Observational
- Pervasive stagnation: flat and increasing cardiovascular disease mortality rates after 2010 across US states and counties.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Pre-COVID-19 Geographic Inequalities in Non-Hispanic Black US Life Expectancy, 1990 to 2019.Population and development review · 2025Article
- Role of Cardiovascular Deaths on Changes in the Longevity Gap Between U.S. and Other Countries.American journal of preventive medicine · 2025Observational
30 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Recent studies have described a reduction in the rate of improvement in American mortality. The pace of improvement is also slow by international standards. This paper attempts to identify the extent to which rising body mass index (BMI) is responsible for reductions in the rate of mortality improvement in the United States. The data for this study were obtained from subsequent cohorts of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III, 1988-1994; NHANES continuous, 1999-2010) and from the NHANES linked mortality files, which include follow-up into death records through December 2011. The role of BMI was estimated using Cox models comparing mortality trends in the presence and absence of adjustment for maximum lifetime BMI (Max BMI). Introducing Max BMI into a Cox model controlling for age and sex raised the annual rate of mortality decline by 0.54% (95% confidence interval 0.45-0.64%). Results were robust to the inclusion of other variables in the model, to differences in how Max BMI was measured, and to how trends were evaluated. The effect of rising Max BMI is large relative to international mortality trends and to alternative mortality futures simulated by the Social Security Administration. The increase in Max BMI over the period 1988-2011 is estimated to have reduced life expectancy at age 40 by 0.9 years in 2011 (95% confidence interval 0.7-1.1 years) and accounted for 186,000 excess deaths that year. Rising levels of BMI have prevented the United States from enjoying the full benefits of factors working to improve mortality.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.