Body Mass Index Changes: an Assessment of the Effects of Age and Gender Using the E-norms Method

Overview

Journal BMC Med Res Methodol

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialties General Medicine
Health Services

Date 2021 Feb 23

PMID 33618666

Citations 5

Authors

Joe F Jabre

Jeremy D P Bland

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: To validate e-norms methodology in establishing a reference range for body mass index measures. A new method, the extrapolated norms (e-norms) method of determining normal ranges for biological variables is easy to use and recently was validated for several biological measurements. We aimed to determine whether this new method provides BMI results in agreement with established traditionally collected BMI values.

Methods: We applied the e-norms method to BMI data from 34,384 individuals and compared the ranges derived from this method with those from a large actuarially based study and explored differences in the normal range by gender, and age.

Results: The e-norms derived range of healthy BMI in adults is from 22.7 to 30.6, and showed that BMI is consistently higher in men than in women and increases with age, except in subjects aged 80-98 years in whom healthy BMI appears to be lower.

Conclusions: Our e-norms derived healthy BMI ranges agree with traditionally obtained actuarially based methods, supporting the validity and ease of use of our method.

Citing Articles

E-norms and AI in clinical neurophysiology.

Jabre J Clin Neurophysiol Pract. 2025; 9:299-304.

PMID: 39758505 PMC: 11696621. DOI: 10.1016/j.cnp.2024.12.001.

The prevalence of functional disability and associated factors among older adults living in Bahir Dar City, Northwest, Ethiopia: a community-based cross-sectional study.

Yihenew A, Anteneh Y, Miheret T, Gobezie M, Eriku G, Yimer Shibabaw Y Front Public Health. 2024; 12:1399027.

PMID: 39450385 PMC: 11499910. DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1399027.

Does Body Mass Index Impact the Clinical Response to Dupilumab Therapy in Atopic Dermatitis? A Monocentric Study of 170 Patients.

Nicolosi S, Barei F, Romagnuolo M, Fumagalli S, Marzano A, Ferrucci S J Clin Med. 2024; 13(15).

PMID: 39124825 PMC: 11313165. DOI: 10.3390/jcm13154559.

Unravelling relationships between obesity, diabetes, and factors related to somatosensory functioning in knee osteoarthritis patients.

Meert L, Vervullens S, Heusdens C, Smeets R, Meeus M, Mertens M Clin Rheumatol. 2024; 43(8):2637-2645.

PMID: 38913223 PMC: 11269413. DOI: 10.1007/s10067-024-07022-2.

Harnessing historical data to derive reference limits - A comparison of e-norms to traditionally derived reference limits.

Dunker O, Szczepanski T, Do H, Omland P, Lie M, Sand T Clin Neurophysiol Pract. 2024; 9:168-175.

PMID: 38707483 PMC: 11067331. DOI: 10.1016/j.cnp.2024.04.001.

References

Stevens J, Keil J, Rust P, Verdugo R, Davis C, Tyroler H . Body mass index and body girths as predictors of mortality in black and white men. Am J Epidemiol. 1992; 135(10):1137-46. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a116214. View

Bland J . The relationship of obesity, age, and carpal tunnel syndrome: more complex than was thought?. Muscle Nerve. 2005; 32(4):527-32. DOI: 10.1002/mus.20408. View

. Trends in adult body-mass index in 200 countries from 1975 to 2014: a pooled analysis of 1698 population-based measurement studies with 19·2 million participants. Lancet. 2016; 387(10026):1377-1396. PMC: 7615134. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)30054-X. View

Pitt M, Jabre J . Determining jitter values in the very young by use of the e-norms methodology. Muscle Nerve. 2016; 55(1):51-54. DOI: 10.1002/mus.25191. View

Diehr P, Bild D, Harris T, Duxbury A, Siscovick D, Rossi M . Body mass index and mortality in nonsmoking older adults: the Cardiovascular Health Study. Am J Public Health. 1998; 88(4):623-9. PMC: 1508430. DOI: 10.2105/ajph.88.4.623. View

Bhaskaran K, Dos-Santos-Silva I, Leon D, Douglas I, Smeeth L . Association of BMI with overall and cause-specific mortality: a population-based cohort study of 3·6 million adults in the UK. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2018; 6(12):944-953. PMC: 6249991. DOI: 10.1016/S2213-8587(18)30288-2. View

Chang S, Beason T, Hunleth J, Colditz G . A systematic review of body fat distribution and mortality in older people. Maturitas. 2012; 72(3):175-91. PMC: 3367099. DOI: 10.1016/j.maturitas.2012.04.004. View

Jabre J . Do you define the limits of normalcy from looking at the patient or the healthy subject? - An e-norms reply. Clin Neurophysiol. 2018; 129(8):1517-1518. DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2018.04.609. View

Shammas H, Jabre J . Validating e-norms methodology in ophthalmic biometry. BMJ Open Ophthalmol. 2020; 5(1):e000500. PMC: 7517564. DOI: 10.1136/bmjophth-2020-000500. View

10.

Chaturvedi N, Fuller J . Mortality risk by body weight and weight change in people with NIDDM. The WHO Multinational Study of Vascular Disease in Diabetes. Diabetes Care. 1995; 18(6):766-74. DOI: 10.2337/diacare.18.6.766. View

11.

Earle N, Jabre J . Reliability and reproducibility of visual e-norms plateau identification. Clin Neurophysiol Pract. 2020; 5:83-86. PMC: 7184101. DOI: 10.1016/j.cnp.2020.03.002. View

12.

Hudda M, Nightingale C, Donin A, Fewtrell M, Haroun D, Lum S . Body mass index adjustments to increase the validity of body fatness assessment in UK Black African and South Asian children. Int J Obes (Lond). 2017; 41(7):1048-1055. PMC: 5500188. DOI: 10.1038/ijo.2017.75. View

13.

Wong E, Wang B, Garrison L, Alfonso-Cristancho R, Flum D, Arterburn D . Examining the BMI-mortality relationship using fractional polynomials. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2011; 11:175. PMC: 3273446. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2288-11-175. View

14.

Scott-Pillai R, Spence D, Cardwell C, Hunter A, Holmes V . The impact of body mass index on maternal and neonatal outcomes: a retrospective study in a UK obstetric population, 2004-2011. BJOG. 2013; 120(8):932-9. DOI: 10.1111/1471-0528.12193. View

15.

Jabre J, Pitt M, Deeb J, Chui K . E-norms: a method to extrapolate reference values from a laboratory population. J Clin Neurophysiol. 2015; 32(3):265-70. DOI: 10.1097/WNP.0000000000000161. View

16.

Jabre J, Pitt M, Smith R . Deriving pediatric nerve conduction normal values in the very young (<3 years). Clin Neurophysiol. 2019; 131(1):177-182. DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2019.11.004. View

17.

Knight-Agarwal C, Mellor D, Georgousopoulos E, Krause B, Coghlan S . Maternal body mass index, smoking status and small for gestational age: an Australian retrospective cohort study. Public Health. 2020; 185:381-385. DOI: 10.1016/j.puhe.2020.05.029. View

18.

Beyerlein A, Ruckinger S, Toschke A, Schaffrath Rosario A, von Kries R . Is low birth weight in the causal pathway of the association between maternal smoking in pregnancy and higher BMI in the offspring?. Eur J Epidemiol. 2011; 26(5):413-20. DOI: 10.1007/s10654-011-9560-y. View