Background

In contrast to middle age, higher body mass index (BMI), cholesterol levels, and blood pressures associate no longer with increased mortality in old age. With increasing age, these risk factors are prone to change over time. It is unclear whether dynamics of these traditional metabolic risk factors in late life associate with mortality and whether they occur in concert with each other.

Methods

Within the Leiden 85-plus Study, a prospective population-based study of 599 participants aged 85 years, participants were annually assessed during a 5-year follow-up period and observed for mortality for 10 years.

Results

BMI, total cholesterol levels, glucose levels, and blood pressures declined and HDL cholesterol levels increased between ages 85 and 90 years (all p < .005). Participants who died at age 90 years had stronger annual declines in BMI, total cholesterol levels, and diastolic blood pressure and weaker increases in HDL cholesterol levels than participants who survived until the end of follow-up (all p < or = .001). In a principal component analysis, annual changes in total, LDL, and HDL cholesterol levels; blood pressures; and glucose, albumin, hemoglobin, leukocyte, and C-reactive protein levels grouped together in one component (all correlation r with component >.40), which associated with all-cause and cancer mortality.

Conclusions

In old age, larger declines in BMI, total cholesterol levels, and blood pressures and weaker increases in HDL cholesterol levels associate with mortality. We identified distinct clustering in the dynamics of these traditional metabolic risk factors and indicators of health and disease in a profile that is suggestive of underlying wasting disease.