Body Mass Index as a Measure of Health Care for Japanese Male Office Workers

Abstract

Body Mass Index as a Measure of Health Care for Japanese Male Office Workers: Noriyuki NAKANISHI, et al. Department of Social and Environmental Medicine, Course of Social Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine—Cross-sectional associations between body mass index (BMI) and medical test items in health examinations were examined in 2, 435 Japanese male office workers aged 20 to 59 yr in Osaka, Japan. From the logistic regression analyses, BMI showed a significant dose-relationship for the high levels of systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressures (DBP), total cholesterol (T-CHOL), triglyceride, glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT), glutamic pyruvic transaminase (GPT), gamma glutamyl transpeptidase (γ-GTP), uric acid (UA), and hemoglobin A_1c and the low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, hemoglobin, and hematocrit, controlling for age and habits of drinking alcohol and smoking. The high levels of DBP, T-CHOL, GOT, GPT, γ-GTP and UA showed significant odds ratios (ORs) for 22.5 to 23.4 kg/m² of BMI compared with 21.5 to 22.4 kg/m² of BMI as the reference level. In the logistic regression analyses using the total number of abnormal findings in medical test items as a dependent variable, ORs for 22.5 to 23.4 kg/m² of BMI relative to 21.5 to 22.4 kg /M² of BMI were 1.49 [95% confidence interval (Cl): 1.01-2.21] for one, 1.58 (95% Cl: 1.05-2.36) for two, 3.31 (95% Cl: 1.86-5.90) for three and 3.56 (95% Cl: 1.89-6.72) for four or more. By contrast, there were no definite associations between the BMI levels of less than 21.5 kg/m² and the total number of abnormal findings in medical test items. These results suggest that the optimal BMI level is 21.5 to 22.4 kg/m² or somewhat below for promoting better health in this population.