[Does obesity increase mortality? An empirical evaluation of German hospital data]

The vast majority of investigations on the relationship between BMI (body mass index) and mortality results in a U-shaped relationship. Using a randomly selected number of more than 32,000 patients of German acute hospitals the U-shaped relationship is confirmed for mortality from cardiovascular diseases. BMI and mortality are not related over wide ranges of BMI for mortality from all causes. Only at the very extremes (heavy overweight and underweight) the number of deaths per number of patients in a certain BMI-class are increased.