Combined associations of body weight and lifestyle factors with all cause and cause specific mortality in men and women: Prospective cohort study

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the combined associations of diet, physical activity, moderate alcohol consumption, and smoking with body weight on risk of all cause and cause specific mortality. Design Longitudinal study with up to 32 years of follow-up. Setting Nursesf Health Study (1980-2012) and Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986-2012). Participants 74 582 women from the Nursesf Health Study and 39 284 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study who were free from cardiovascular disease and cancer at baseline. Main outcom e measures Exposures included body mass index (BMI), score on the alternate healthy eating index, level of physical activity, smoking habits, and alcohol drinking while outcome was mortality (all cause, cardiovascular, cancer). Cox proportional hazard models were used to calculate the adjusted hazard ratios of all cause, cancer, and cardiovascular mortality with their 95% confidence intervals across categories of BMI, with 22.5-24.9 as the reference. Results During up to 32 years of follow-up, there were 30 013 deaths (including 10 808 from cancer and 7189 from cardiovascular disease). In each of the four categories of BMI studied (18.5-22.4, 22.5-24.9, 25-29.9,≥30), people with one or more healthy lifestyle factors had a significantly lower risk of total, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality than individuals with no low risk lifestyle factors. A combination of at least three low risk lifestyle factors and BMI between 18.5-22.4 was associated with the lowest risk of all cause (hazard ratio 0.39, 95% confidence interval 0.35 to 0.43), cancer (0.40, 0.34 to 0.47), and cardiovascular (0.37, 0.29 to 0.46) mortality, compared with those with BMI between 22.5-24.9 and none of the four low risk lifestyle factors.