Three authors reply

摘要

We thank Dowd and Zajacova (1) for their comments on our analysis of body mass, weight change, and mortality in different adult age periods (2). The main point of their critique is that our analysis did not take into account attained body mass index (BMI; weight (kg)/height (m)~2) when evaluating the influence of BMI at younger ages on mortality. They note that persons who are overweight in young adulthood are more likely to be severely obese later in life. They suggest that the mortality risk we attributed to high BMI in early adulthood (Table 3 (2, p. 139)) may be due to the more severe obesity experienced by these persons later in life, and they argue that our analysis of the age at which BMI is first exceeded (Table 6 (2, p. 142)) should have adjusted for baseline BMI (1).