Establishing a new BMI cut-off value for malnutrition diagnosis using the global leadership initiative on malnutrition (GLIM) tool in Chinese older adults.

Background The average body weight of the Chinese population is rising rapidly over the past two decades and the old 2001 body mass index (BMI) cut-off value for malnutrition may underestimate malnutrition diagnosis. We explored the BMI cut-off value for malnutrition diagnosis based on national BMI data over the past 30 years and applied it to the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) criteria when investigating malnutrition in hospitalized older adult patients. Methods To explore the BMI cut-off value for malnutrition, we established a linear stepwise model to predict the annual increasing BMI trend based on data from the national BMI dataset (1990-2009). The new cut-off value was applied to a large-scale dataset from a cross-sectional study pertaining to older hospitalized patients (≥65) recruited from 30 large hospitals in China. Results The average BMI increased from 21.8 to 23 kg/m2 in two decades. Using the linear model, we calculated that the net BMI increase will be 1.49 kg/m2 from 2009 to 2019. We subsequently proposed that the BMI cut-off value for malnutrition should rise to 20 kg/m2 . This cut-off value was applied to the validation dataset, containing 8,725 patients, and the GLIM-determined malnutrition rate was 24.58% (using the NRS-2002) and 23.32% (using the MNA-SF). The results significantly differed from those obtained using the 2001 Chinese BMI criteria (p Conclusion The GLIM tool has good applicability in Asian populations, especially in Chinese older adult patients. The BMI cut-off value for malnutrition should be adjusted to 20 kg/m2 for Chinese adults. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.