Height loss with advancing age in a hospitalized population of Polish men and women: magnitude, pattern and associations with mortality

• Authors: Piotr Chmielewski , Krzysztof Borysławski , Krzysztof Chmielowiec , Jolanta Chmielowiec
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The connection between the rate of height loss in older people and their general health status has been well documented in the medical literature. Our study was aimed at furthering the characterization of this interrelationship in the context of health indices and mortality in a hospitalized population of Polish adults. Data were collated from a literature review and from a longitudinal study of aging carried out in the Polish population which followed 142 physically healthy inmates, including 68 men and 74 women, for at least 25 years from the age of 45 onwards. Moreover, cross-sectional data were available from 225 inmates, including 113 men and 112 women. These subjects were confined at the same hospital. ANOVA, t-test, and regression analysis were employed. The results indicate that the onset of height loss emerges in the fourth and five decade of life and there is a gradual acceleration of reduction of height at later stages of ontogeny in both sexes. Postmenopausal women experience a more rapid loss of height compared with men. The individuals who had higher rate of loss of height (≥3 cm/decade) tend to be at greater risk of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality. In conclusion, our findings suggest that a systematic assessment of the rate of loss of height can be useful for clinicians caring for elderly people because of its prognostic value in terms of morbidity and mortality.

Keywords

EN

aging; body height; changes with age; health; morbidity; mortality

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Anthropological Review
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 78
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 157-168

Dates

published

2015-06-01

received

2015-03-21

accepted

2015-05-22

online

2015-06-26

Contributors

author

Piotr Chmielewski

• Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Wroclaw Medical University, Poland

author

Krzysztof Borysławski

• Department of Anthropology, Institute of Biology, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Poland

author

Krzysztof Chmielowiec

• Regional Psychiatric Hospital for People with Mental Disorders in Cibórz, Lubuskie Province, Poland

author

Jolanta Chmielowiec

• Faculty of Education, Sociology and Health Sciences, University of Zielona Góra, Poland

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/anre-2015-0011