A BMI in the 50th to 74th percentiles, within the accepted normal range, during adolescence was associated with increased cardiovascular and all-cause mortality during 40 years of follow-up. Overweight and obesity were strongly associated with increased cardiovascular mortality in adulthood. (Funded by the Environment and Health Fund.).

BACKGROUND The association of body-mass index (BMI) from adolescence to adulthood with obesity-related diseases in young adults has not been completely delineated. METHODS We conducted a prospective study in which we followed 37,674 apparently healthy young men for incident angiography-proven coronary heart disease and diabetes through the Staff Periodic Examination Center of the Israeli Army Medical Corps. The height and weight of participants were measured at regular intervals, with the first measurements taken when they were 17 years of age. RESULTS During approximately 650,000 person-years of follow-up (mean follow-up, 17.4 years), we documented 1173 incident cases of type 2 diabetes and 327 of coronary heart disease. In multivariate models adjusted for age, family history, blood pressure, lifestyle factors, and biomarkers in blood, elevated adolescent BMI (the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters; mean range for the first through last deciles, 17.3 to 27.6) was a significant predictor of both diabetes (hazard ratio for the highest vs. the lowest decile, 2.76; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.11 to 3.58) and angiography-proven coronary heart disease (hazard ratio, 5.43; 95% CI, 2.77 to 10.62). Further adjustment for BMI at adulthood completely ablated the association of adolescent BMI with diabetes (hazard ratio, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.75 to 1.37) but not the association with coronary heart disease (hazard ratio, 6.85; 95% CI, 3.30 to 14.21). After adjustment of the BMI values as continuous variables in multivariate models, only elevated BMI in adulthood was significantly associated with diabetes (β = 1.115, P = 0.003; P = 0.89 for interaction). In contrast, elevated BMI in both adolescence (β = 1.355, P = 0.004) and adulthood (β = 1.207, P = 0.03) were independently associated with angiography-proven coronary heart disease (P = 0.048 for interaction). CONCLUSIONS An elevated BMI in adolescence — one that is well within the range currently considered to be normal — constitutes a substantial risk factor for obesity-related disorders in midlife. Although the risk of diabetes is mainly associated with increased BMI close to the time of diagnosis, the risk of coronary heart disease is associated with an elevated BMI both in adolescence and in adulthood, supporting the hypothesis that the processes causing incident coronary heart disease, particularly atherosclerosis, are more gradual than those resulting in incident diabetes. (Funded by the Chaim Sheba Medical Center and the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps.)

Background:The relationship between adolescent body mass index (BMI) and future risk for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is not fully understood, nor is it known the extent to which this association is limited to diabetic ESRD. We evaluated the association between BMI in adolescence and the risk for all-cause, diabetic, and nondiabetic ESRD.Methods: Medical data about 1 194 704 adolescents aged 17 years who had been examined for fitness for military service between January 1, 1967, and December 31, 1997, were linked to the Israeli ESRD registry in this nationwide population-based retrospective cohort study. Incident cases of treated ESRD between January 1, 1980, and May 31, 2010, were included. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the hazard ratio (HR) for treated ESRD among study participants for their BMI at age 17 years, defined in accord with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention BMI for age and sex classification.Results: During 30 478 675 follow-up person-years (mean [SD], 25.51 [8.77] person-years), 874 participants (713 male and 161 female) developed treated ESRD, for an overall incidence rate of 2.87 cases per 100 000 person-years. Compared with adolescents of normal weight, overweight adolescents (85th to 95th percentiles of BMI) and obese adolescents (Ն95th percentile of BMI) had an increased future risk for treated ESRD, with incidence rates of 6.08 and 13.40 cases per 100 000 person-years, respectively. In a multivariate model adjusted for sex, country of origin, systolic blood pressure, and period of enrollment in the study, overweight was associated with an HR of 3.00 (95% CI, 2.50-3.60) and obesity with an HR of 6.89 (95% CI, 5.52-8.59) for all-cause treated ESRD. Overweight (HR, 5.96; 95% CI,) and obesity (HR, 19.37; 95% CI,) were strong and independent risk factors for diabetic ESRD. Positive associations of overweight (HR, 2.17; 95% CI, 1.71-2.74) and obesity (HR, 3.41; 95% CI, 2.42-4.79) with nondiabetic ESRD were also documented.Conclusions: Overweight and obesity in adolescents were associated with significantly increased risk for all-cause treated ESRD during a 25-year period. Elevated BMI constitutes a substantial risk factor for diabetic and nondiabetic ESRD.