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The relation between body weight and overall mortality remains controversial despite considerable investigation.

We examined the association between body-mass index (defined as the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) and both overall mortality and mortality from specific causes in a cohort of 115,195 U.S. women enrolled in the prospective Nurses' Health Study. These women were 30 to 55 years of age and free of known cardiovascular disease and cancer in 1976. During 16 years of follow-up, we documented 4726 deaths, of which 881 were from cardiovascular disease, 2586 from cancer, and 1259 from other causes.

In analyses adjusted only for age, we observed a J-shaped relation between body-mass index and overall mortality. When women who had never smoked were examined separately, no increase in risk was observed among the …