Abstract
This study has examined the relationship between weight fluctuation and the reported results of annual health examination including the death cases. The subjects were 658 adults (200 men and 458 women) aged 30 and older in Sashiki-cho, Okinawa, Japan, who participated in annual health examinations at least 7 times between 1986 and 1994. The subjects were classified into"need of medication", "need of care", "need of observation"and"within normal limit"according to the results of 7 to 9 annual health examinations: in addition, the cases of death were separately treated. Each individual's variability of body mass index (BMI), was assessed through both the gradient of time-dependent (age) regression and the coefficient of variation (CV). For the obese subjects (146 except dead cases) whose BMI was over 26.0 at the first examination, the relationship between weight fluctuation (BMI gradient and CV) and the change in the statement after annual health examination was investigated. The change of physical statement from the first 5 years to the latter 4 years was categorized to"getting better", "unchanged"and"getting worse". The findings of the analysis of variance and multiple classification table adjusted for two covariates (age and sex) are summarized as follows: 1) The gradient of BMI was tend to be negative in most death cases. The CV was higher in the worse cases of physical statement than in the better cases; 2) The cases of"getting better" showed that the gradient was downwards with increase of CV, whereas the cases of"getting worse" showed that the gradient was upwards with increase of CV. The weight in the cases of"unchanged" was almost unvariable. It is concluded that since weight fluctuation and change of the statements on physical condition were associated, it is desirable to keep an individual's body weight within an adequate range, paying attention to weight fluctuation .
