Global burden and cross-country inequalities in diseases associated with high body mass index from 1990 to 2019: Result from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019.

Background: High body mass index (BMI) has gradually become an increased risk factor for the global burden of diseases (GBD). As the disease burden and the number of elders globally increase, it is crucial for policymakers to realise the associations between high BMI and disease burden worldwide in a timely manner and to develop effective interventions for different countries and ages.

Methods: We used the GBD 2019 database to analyse the deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) in the disease burden associated with high BMI and indicated the health inequality at the global, regional, and national levels. We applied the slope index of inequality and concentration index, two standard metrics of absolute and relative gradient inequality recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), to quantify the distributive inequalities in the burden of diseases associated with high BMI. These rates were reported per 100 000 population as crude incidence rates, death rates, and DALYs rates. All the estimates were generated with a 95% uncertainty interval (UIs).

Results: Globally, we revealed that an estimated age-standardised mortality rate associated with high BMI is 6.26 million (95% UIs = 3.99, 8.91). The age-standardised DALYs rate is 19.32 million (95% UIs = 12.77, 26.40), and the global population attributable fraction was 9% (95% UIs = 5, 12) in 2019. The largest number of high-BMI-related deaths in women mainly concentrated in the age group of 65-79 years, whereas the largest number in men was in the age group of 60-69 years. The age-standardised DALYs rate of diseases associated with high BMI was larger in the high-middle and middle socio-demographic index (SDI) (population attributable fraction (PAF) = 11 and PAF = 9) regions than those with high SDI (PAF = 1) and low SDI (PAF = 5) regions.

Conclusions: In this study, our results showed that the disease burden of global deaths and DALYs associated with high BMI has substantially increased between 1990-2019. Furthermore, we demonstrated that countries with higher SDI development levels shoulders higher burden of diseases associated with high BMI. Future policies to prevent and reduce the burden should be developed and implemented based on country-specific development status.