Body Composition and Risk of Vascular-Metabolic Mortality Risk in 113 000 Mexican Men and Women Without Prior Chronic Disease

Background Body-mass index is the sum of fat mass index (FMI) and lean mass index (LMI), which vary by age, sex, and impact on disease outcomes. We investigated the separate and joint relevance of FMI and LMI with vascular-metabolic causes of death in Mexican adults. Methods and Results A total of 113 025 adults aged 35 to 74 years and free from diabetes or other chronic diseases when recruited into the Mexico City Prospective Study were followed for 19 years. Cox models estimated sex-specific death rate ratios from vascular-metabolic causes after adjustment for confounders and exclusion of the first 5 years of follow-up. To account for the strong correlation between FMI and LMI, additional models estimated rate ratios associated with "residual FMI" and "residual LMI" (ie, the residuals from linear regression analyses of FMI on LMI, or vice versa). In both sexes, higher FMI and LMI were associated with higher risks of vascular-metabolic mortality. For a given (ie, fixed) level of LMI, the rate ratio (95% CI) for vascular-metabolic mortality per 1 kg/m² higher residual FMI strengthened and was higher in women (1.52 [1.38-1.68]) than in men (1.19 [1.13-1.25]). By contrast, for a given level of FMI, higher residual LMI was inversely associated with vascular-metabolic mortality (rate ratio per 1 kg/m² 0.67 [0.56-0.80] in women and 0.94 [0.90-0.98] in men). Conclusions In this study, higher residual FMI was more strongly associated with vascular-metabolic mortality in women than in men. Conversely, higher residual LMI was inversely associated with vascular-metabolic mortality, particularly in women.