January 22, 2023
2 minutes of reading
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The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
According to a study published in European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
“Relevant policies and regulations to ban smoking, provide an activity-friendly environment, fat restriction, etc., are critical to preventing ischemic heart disease.” Yinyan Gao, of the Xiangya School of Public Health at Central South University in Changsha, China, and colleagues wrote. “Meanwhile, our results also suggested that lifestyle improvement, regardless of the baseline level, could reduce the risk of incident ischemic heart disease.”

A decline in lifestyle trajectory over time is associated with an increased risk of incident ischemic heart disease.
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In a large prospective cohort study, Gao and colleagues collected data from the UK Biobank Baseline Assessment between 2006 and 2010 to examine 352,251 participants (mean age, 55.9 years; 54.5% women) for an unhealthy lifestyle score construct and 29,164 participants (mean age, 55.4 years; 51.2% women) for a lifestyle trajectory analysis. Participants had no history of ischemic heart disease and completed at least one follow-up assessment. The mean follow-up period was 11.3 years and 7.3 years for the unhealthy lifestyle score and the lifestyle trajectory analysis, respectively.
Lifestyle scores were determined by smoking status, physical activity, diet, BMI, and sleep duration. For each lifestyle factor, ratings included poor, ideal, or maintain. Meanwhile, lifestyle trajectory analyzes compared baseline lifestyle scores with subsequent lifestyle trajectory in categories labeled decreasing (HR 1.02), improving (HR 0, 98) or maintaining (HR between 0.98 and 1.02).
After calculations for both lifestyle scores and lifestyle trajectories, the researchers merged the categories to improve statistical power. The combined categories were labeled ideal-maintenance, ideal-decline, intermediate-maintenance, intermediate-improvement, intermediate-decline, poor maintenance, poor-improvement, and poor-decline.
The researchers found that participants had an increased risk of ischemic heart disease with each unit increase in unhealthy lifestyle trajectory (HR = 1.08; 95% CI, 0.99–1.17 ). Furthermore, the association was higher among participants with comorbidities such as hypertension (HR = 1.13; 95% CI, 1.03–1.24; p = 0.013), diabetes (HR = 1.23; 95% CI, 0.96-1.58; p = 0.097) or hyperlipidemia (HR = 1.09; 95% CI, 0.97-1.22; p = 0.166).
Participants also faced an increased risk of ischemic heart disease compared with the ideal maintenance group if they were in intermediate maintenance (HR = 1.3; 95% CI, 1.07-1.58), poor maintenance (HR = 1.52; 95% CI, 1.23). -1.88), intermediate improvement (HR = 1.25; 95% CI, 0.93-1.68), poor improvement (HR = 1.48; 95% CI, 1.17-1.88), intermediate decline (HR = 1.46; 95% CI, 1.08–1.99) and low decline groups (HR = 1.77; 95% CI, 1.21–2.59).
“Public health policies must take initiatives that promote change to a healthier lifestyle and refine and promote guidelines on optimal lifestyle behavior recommendations for specific populations,” wrote Gao and colleagues. leagues