Environment and lifestyle contribute more to the risk of premature death than does genetic predisposition.
Summary
Whether we’ll die early from heart, lung or liver diseases depends more on how we live than on our genes, health data from UK Biobank participants have revealed. Some factors – smoking, lack of physical activity and experiencing hardships – stood out as particularly detrimental. Yet the combined effect of many small facets of life was most important for differences in mortality.
The risk of dying early from heart, lung or liver diseases depends more on how we live than on our genes, data from more than 492,000 UK Biobank participants have revealed.
These findings underscore the potential benefits of focusing interventions on our environments, socioeconomic contexts and behaviours for the prevention of many age-related diseases and premature death.
Austin Argentieri, Harvard University, US
Smoking, lack of physical activity and experiencing hardships such as poverty or unemployment seemed to be particularly important for differences in mortality. Conversely, deaths from dementia and certain types of cancer had a stronger link to genes than to lifestyle and environment.
“These findings underscore the potential benefits of focusing interventions on our environments, socioeconomic contexts and behaviours for the prevention of many age-related diseases and premature death,” study co-leader Austin Argentieri from Harvard University, US, said in a statement.
A case for multi-factor policies
Experts called the study “groundbreaking” and “impressive”. Argentieri and colleagues assessed how 164 aspects of life – from sleep and education to living conditions and air pollution – relate to mortality. The team then looked at levels of ageing-related blood components of 45,000 UK Biobank participants to narrow down the list to the 25 most influential factors.
The researchers investigated how each of these 25 factors, as well as hereditary risk for 22 major diseases, explained variation in mortality – meaning the differences above a baseline that depends simply on age and sex.
This has important policy implications, meaning that policies targeting only one or two of these factors will have limited impact on extending healthspan.
Ilaria Bellantuono, University of Sheffield, UK
While some factors, such as whether someone is a smoker, stood out, it was the combined effect of all of them over the course of people’s lives was most important. “This has important policy implications, meaning that policies targeting only one or two of these factors will have limited impact on extending healthspan,” said Ilaria Bellantuono, who co-directs a research institute focused on healthy ageing at the University of Sheffield, UK.
Argentieri and his colleagues are careful to point out that their study can’t establish whether changing external factors can change people’s risk of premature death. “Like all observational studies, the findings are about correlations and associations, not about cause and effect,” explained statistician Kevin McConway from the UK’s Open University.
