Body Mass Index as a Predictor of All-Cause Mortality in Nursing Home Residents During a 5-Year Follow-up

The impact of weight loss and low BMI on mortality of nursing home residents – Results from the nutritionDay in nursing homes

“…In a cohort of community-dwelling subjects aged 65 years and older, Atlantis et al found an increased mortality in subjects with a low BMI, but not in those with unintentional weight loss [9]. Veronese et al suggested that the BMI was a better predictor for the mortality of nursing home residents than the Mini Nutritional Assessment, but they did not explicitly test for weight lost [17]. There are numerous additional studies demonstrating the association of low BMI and weight loss with increased mortality of older persons in various settings.…”

Effect of weight loss on mortality in overweight and obese nursing home residents during a 5-year follow-up

“…[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] This trend was confirmed by different studies in the NH setting, in which a lower mortality risk coincided with a higher body mass index (BMI). [13][14][15] Weight changes might have a key role in explaining the unexpected relationship between BMI and mortality in old people. Unintentional short-term weight loss in NH residents can often be a sign of wasting diseases, such as end-stage renal failure, heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer and inflammatory conditions, 16 that gradually lead to a state of malnutrition that worsens the prognosis.…”

Nutrition-related risk indexes and long-term mortality in noncritically ill inpatients who receive total parenteral nutrition (prospective multicenter study)

“…In older patients admitted for acute geriatric care 4-year mortality was predicted adequately by a low BMI, whereas the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) failed to predict long-term mortality, likely due to the overriding impact of co-morbidities and acute disease [16]. Likewise, a high BMI in elderly nursing home residents has been associated with a lower risk of long-term mortality (5 years) and was found to be the best parameter as compared with albumin or the Mini Nutritional Assessment [19].…”

“…Furthermore, the population selected is often very old [16] (which may not be representative of the population admitted to acute care hospitals) or old and institutionalized [10,17e19], or in a nursing home [19], and consideration of the confounding effect of disease is rare [14]. Even fewer studies have investigated mortality outcomes using data from national death registries [14,15], thus ensuring accuracy in data collection.…”