==== Front
Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.3377
igaa057.3377
Abstracts
Session 10340 (Late Breaking Poster)
Nutrition | Obesity & Eating Disorders
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Body Mass Index and 12-year Mortality Among Older Mexican Americans Aged 75 Years and Older
Jadhav Reshma  Markides Kyriakos S  Snih Soham Al  
The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Galveston, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”919 920
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
The objective of this study was to examine the effect of body mass index (BMI) on 12-year mortality among older Mexican Americans aged 75 years and older. Data are from wave 5 (N=1,367) of the Hispanic Established Population for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (2004/2005-2016). Measures included socio-demographics, self-reported medical conditions, body mass index (BMI), disability, Mini-Mental-State-Examination (MMSE), short physical performance battery (SPPB), high depressive symptoms, and falls. BMI was classified as underweight (< 18.5), normal weight (18.5 to < 25), overweight (25 to < 30), obesity type I (30 to <35), and morbid obesity (≥ 35).Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was performed to estimate the hazard ratio of 12-year mortality as a function of BMI categories at baseline. The average of the sample was 81.2 years, 17.2% were underweight, 22.7% were normal weight, 27.4% were overweight, 31.9% were obesity type I, and 38.6% were morbid obesity. Mexican Americans aged ≥75 years with overweight or obesity Type I had a reduced hazard ratio (HR) of death (HR=0.80, 95% CI=0.68-0.93 and HR=0.73, 95% CI=0.60-0.88, respectively) over 12-years of follow-up. The HR of death for underweight and morbid obesity participants was 1.78 (95% CI=1.13-2.80) and 1.03 (95% CI=0.79-1.36), respectively. Female participants and those with high scores in the MMSE and SPPB had decreased risk of death. This study confirmed the protective effect of overweight and obesity on mortality seen in this population at a younger age, which might have implications when treating older adults with overweight and obesity.