Overweight and urinary incontinence in women

The aim was to study the possible role of obesity in adult female urinary incontinence (UI) etiology. A random population sample of 3114 women aged 30-59 were sent a postal questionnaire concerning urinary incontinence and, among other things, body weight and height. The overall response rate was 85%, and the present analysis comprises 2589 women who gave information about their body weight and height. The period prevalence of all, stress, urge, and mixed stress and urge urinary incontinence (UI) was 17%, 15%, 9% and 7%, respectively. The mean body mass index (BMI) was 22.7 kg/m2. Irrespective of other risk indicators, BMI was positively associated with UI prevalence (OR 1.07 per BMI unit, p < 0.0001). BMI interacted with childbirth in predicting stress UI prevalence, with cystitis in predicting urge UI, and with both in predicting mixed UI. Stress UI turned out to be the UI type most closely associated with BMI.