Impact of Smoking and Preexisting Illness on Estimates of the Fractions of Deaths Associated with Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity in the US Population

Studies of body weight and mortality sometimes exclude participants who have ever smoked or who may have had preexisting illness at baseline. This exclusionary approach was applied to data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys to investigate the potential effects of smoking and preexisting illness on estimates of the attributable fractions of US deaths in 2000 that were associated with different levels of body mass index...