Obesity and its Association with Food Consumption, Diabetes Mellitus, and Acute Myocardial Infarction in the Elderly

BACKGROUND: Obesity affects a large part of elderly individuals worldwide and is considered a risk predictor for the development of chronic diseases such as cardiac diseases, the leading causes of death in the elderly population. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence of obesity and associated factors, with emphasis on the occurrence of other diseases and on food consumption in elderly individuals treated at the Brazilian Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde, SUS). METHODS: Cross-sectional sampling study performed in the city of Goiânia (Brazil) including elderly individuals (≥ 60 years) receiving primary care. During home visits, we performed anthropometric measurements and applied a structured, standardized, and pre-tested questionnaire assessing socioeconomic, demographic and lifestyle conditions, occurrence of diseases, and food consumption. We performed multiple Poisson regression analysis using a hierarchical model and adopting a significance level of 5%. RESULTS: We evaluated 418 elderly patients with a mean age of 70.7 ± 7 years. Their body mass indices had a mean value of 27.0 kg/m(2) and were higher in women than in men (27.4 kg/m(2) versus 26.1 kg/m(2), respectively, p = 0.017). Obesity had a prevalence of 49.0%, a risk 1.87 times higher between the ages of 60-69 years and 70-79 years, and a rate 1.4 times higher among individuals with more than four morbidities. On multivariate analysis, the factors associated with obesity were age 60-69 and 70-79 years, inadequate consumption of whole-wheat grains and adequate consumption of fruit, musculoskeletal diseases, diabetes mellitus, and acute myocardial infarction. CONCLUSIONS: Obesity had a high prevalence in the evaluated elderly population and was associated with food consumption, musculoskeletal disease, diabetes mellitus, and acute myocardial infarction.