Johnson, William;
Norris, Tom;
Pearson, Natalie;
Petherick, Emily S;
King, James A;
Willis, Scott A;
Hardy, Rebecca;
... Richardson, Tom G; + view all
(2025)
Are associations of adulthood overweight and obesity with all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, and obesity-related cancer modified by comparative body weight at age 10 years in the UK Biobank study?
International Journal of Obesity
10.1038/s41366-025-01718-4.
(In press).
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Abstract
Objective: Adults living with overweight or obesity do not represent a single homogenous group in terms of mortality and disease risks. The aim of our study was to evaluate how the associations of adulthood overweight and obesity with mortality and incident disease are modified by (i.e., differ according to) self-reported childhood body weight categories. Methods: The sample comprised 191,181 men and 242,806 women aged 40–69 years (in 2006–2010) in the UK Biobank. The outcomes were all-cause mortality, incident cardiovascular disease (CVD), and incident obesity-related cancer. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate how the associations with the outcomes of adulthood weight status (normal weight, overweight, obesity) differed according to perceived body weight at age 10 years (about average, thinner, plumper). To triangulate results using an approach that better accounts for confounding, analyses were repeated using previously developed and validated polygenic risk scores (PRSs) for childhood body weight and adulthood BMI, categorised into three-tier variables using the same proportions as in the observational variables. Results: In both sexes, adulthood obesity was associated with higher hazards of all outcomes. However, the associations of obesity with all-cause mortality and incident CVD were stronger in adults who reported being thinner at 10 years. For example, obesity was associated with a 1.28 (1.21, 1.35) times higher hazard of all-cause mortality in men who reported being an average weight child, but among men who reported being a thinner child this estimate was 1.63 (1.53, 1.75). The ratio between these two estimates was 1.28 (1.17, 1.40). There was also some evidence that the associations of obesity with all-cause mortality and incident CVD were stronger in adults who reported being plumper at 10 years. In genetic analyses, however, there was no evidence that the association of obesity (according to the adult PRS) with mortality or incident CVD differed according to childhood body size (according to the child PRS). For incident obesity-related cancer, the evidence for effect modification was limited and inconsistent between the observational and genetic analyses. Conclusions: Greater risks for all-cause mortality and incident CVD in adults with obesity who perceive themselves to have been a thinner or plumper than average child may be due to confounding and/or recall bias.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Are associations of adulthood overweight and obesity with all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, and obesity-related cancer modified by comparative body weight at age 10 years in the UK Biobank study? |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41366-025-01718-4 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-025-01718-4 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10203939 |
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| 2. |  United States | 2 |
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