Body Mass Index and All-cause Mortality in Chronic Kidney Disease: A Dose-response Meta-analysis of Observational Studies

Abstract

This article provides a dose-response meta-analysis to evaluate the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and all-cause and disease-specific mortality in chronic kidney disease (CKD) by pooling together early stage, hemodialysis, and peritoneal dialysis patients. We evaluated eligible studies that published between 1966 and December 2014 by searching in PubMed, Object View and Interaction Design (OVID), and the Scopus databases. We used random-effects generalized least squares spline models for trend estimation to derive pooled dose-response estimates. Nonlinear associations of BMI with all-cause mortality were observed (P-nonlinearity < .0001), with an increased rate of mortality with BMIs > 30 kg/m² in all stages of CKD together. However, reanalysis of data separately by stage of CKD (hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis) showed that the risk of all-cause mortality decreased with a steep slope in individuals with BMIs > 30 kg/m². This meta-analysis indicates that higher BMI has protective effects with respect to all-cause mortality in patients with both type of dialysis.