Change in height, weight, and body mass index: longitudinal data from Austria.

OBJECTIVES: To quantify changes in height, weight and their compound effect on the body mass index (BMI) in a large cohort of Central-European men and women. METHODS: The Vorarlberg health monitoring and prevention program (VHM&PP) is a population-based risk factor surveillance program in Vorarlberg. Data of health examinations during January 1985 to June 2005 were available including 714,181 height and weight measurements in 185,192 persons (53.9% women). We estimated yearly percentage change of anthropometric parameters over the age range from 20 to 85 years within intervals of 5 years. RESULTS: We found that weight increased until the age of 70 years (from the age of 20 years: +24.8% in men and +27.6% in women), with the highest increase in men aged 20-25 years (1.07% per year). Height was shown to decrease starting from the age group 45-50 years. This decrease accelerated with age, and was more pronounced in women than in men. CONCLUSIONS: Weight is strongly related to aging. In older individuals height loss affects BMI and masks weight loss to some degree.

Metabolic factors and hip fracture risk in a large Austrian cohort study.

To explore the association of incident hip fractures with metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its single components, we designed a prospective cohort study of hip fracture incidence among 117,053 participants of a population-based health surveillance program in Vorarlberg, the westernmost Austrian province. Incident hip fractures were recorded between 5 and 10 years after inclusion at baseline from 2003 to 2009. Applying Cox proportional hazard models for each MetS component and for a composite z-score for MetS, hazards for fracture were estimated in quintiles, as continuous z-score variables, and as pathological cut off values. Mean age was 50.1 ± 15.6 years at baseline, 5-10 years after which 947 incident hip fractures occurred. An association of a higher composite MetS score with decreased hip fracture risk was observed in women (HR 0.80, 95%-CI 0.88-0.96, p < 0.01) which disappeared upon adjustment for BMI. BMI was inversely associated with hip fracture risk in women and men (HR for the highest compared with the lowest quintile: 0.83 (95%-CI: 0.63-1.10, p trend < 0.05) and 0.55 (95%-CI: 0.38-0.79, p trend < 0.001), respectively). Only in women, hip fracture risk was reduced at high cholesterol levels (HR for the highest relative to the lowest quintile: 0.64, 95%-CI: 0.48-0.84, p trend < 0.05) and in hypercholesterolemic patients (HR 0.82, 95%-CI: 0.67-0.99, p < 0.05), but elevated in hyperglycemic patients (HR 1.33, 95%-CI: 1.05-1.70, p < 0.05). Hypertriglyceridemia was associated with increased male hip fracture risk (HR 1.33, 95%-CI: 1.03-1.72, p < 0.05). The inverse association between the MetS and hip fracture risk is mainly driven by one single component, namely BMI.