Body mass index and functional status in community dwelling older Turkish males

Disability is utmost important on an aging population's health. Obesity is associated with increased risk for disability. On-the-other-hand, higher-BMI is reported as associated with better functionality in older people in some reports defined as obesity paradox. There is some evidence on differential relationship between body weight status and functionality by living setting gender, and different populations. We studied the relation between body mass index and functionality in Turkish community dwelling older males accounting for the most confounding factors: age, multimorbidity, polypharmacy and nutritional status. This is a cross-sectional study in a geriatric outpatient clinic of a university hospital. Functionality was assessed with evaluation of activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) scales. Nutrition was assessed by mini-nutritional assessment test. Two hundred seventy-four subjects comprised our study cohort. Mean age was 74.4 +/- 7.1 years, BMI was 25.8 +/- 4.4kg/m(2). Linear regression analysis revealed significant and independent association of lower BMI with higher ADL and IADL scores (B=0.047 and B=0.128, respectively) (p<0.05) and better nutritional status (B=1.94 and B=3.05, respectively) (p<0.001) but not with the total number of medications. Higher IADL score was associated with younger age and lower total number of diseases (B=0.121, B=0.595, respectively) (p<0.05) while ADL was not. We suggest that lower BMI is associated with better functional status in Turkish community-dwelling male older people. Our study recommends longitudinal studies with higher participants from different populations, genders and living settings are needed to comment more.