Measures of adiposity and coronary heart disease mortality in the Chicago Western Electric Company study

Associations of body mass index (BMI), two measures of percent body fat derived from skin-folds, body weight adjusted for height, triceps and subscapular skinfolds, and their sum, with 22-year coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality were compared in 1707 white men ages 40–55 years at baseline (1958) and free of CHD and cancer in 1961 in the Western Electric Study. Because associations of adiposity measures with CHD mortality differed by length of follow-up, analyses were conducted separately for the first 14 years of follow-up and years 15 through 22. In Cox regression analyses, none of the adiposity measures was significantly related to CHD mortality for the first 14 years of follow-up. For years 15–22, all adiposity measures, except triceps skinfold, were significantly related with adjustment for age, as well as eight other covariates. These results indicate that a positive relation of adiposity to CHD risk may not become apparent until several years after the assessment of adiposity.