This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related articles  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Obesity  • Alert me on articles by topic

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 114 words of the full text and any section headings.

In Reply: We agree with Dr Cheng that the relationship between obesity and total mortality is an important association for investigation. Our study deliberately focused on the outcomes of heart disease and diabetes because previous literature has shown that the relationship between body mass index and all-cause mortality is U-shaped¹ (particularly among older adults). It is complicated by a number of factors such as preexisting conditions, length of follow-up, and smoking.² It therefore requires a different type of analysis than we conducted and cannot be derived directly from the data that we presented. However, we do intend to perform that study and will report the results when they are available.

Financial Disclosures: None reported.

Lijing L. Yan, PhD, MPH
lijing@northwestern.edu

Kiang Liu, PhD; Martha L. Daviglus, MD, PhD; Alan R. Dyer, PhD; Philip Greenland, MD
Department of Preventive Medicine
Feinberg School of Medicine
Northwestern University
Chicago, Ill

1. Flegal KM, Graubard BI, Williamson DF, Gail MH. Excess deaths associated with underweight, overweight, and obesity. JAMA. 2005;293:1861-1867. FREE FULL TEXT 2. Dyer AR, Stamler J, Garside DB, Greenland P. Long-term consequences of body mass index for cardiovascular mortality: the Chicago Heart Association detection project in industry study. Ann Epidemiol. 2004;14:101-108. FULL TEXT | ISI | PUBMED

Letters Section Editor: Robert M. Golub, MD, Senior Editor.

JAMA. 2006;295:1772.

RELATED ARTICLES

Midlife Body Mass Index and Total Mortality
Huai Yong Cheng
JAMA. 2006;295(15):1772.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Midlife Body Mass Index and Hospitalization and Mortality in Older Age
Lijing L. Yan, Martha L. Daviglus, Kiang Liu, Jeremiah Stamler, Renwei Wang, Amber Pirzada, Daniel B. Garside, Alan R. Dyer, Linda Van Horn, Youlian Liao, James F. Fries, and Philip Greenland
JAMA. 2006;295(2):190-198.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT