Approved Research

The effect of novel Healthy Lifestyle Scores in the association of frailty and chronic pain with risk of cancer and CVD, as well as all-cause and cause-specific mortality in British adults

Lay summary

Persons that have a healthy lifestyle namely being physically active, eat mainly plant-derived foods (e.g., fruits, vegetables, legumes), are less likely to suffer a heart attack or cancer, or die prematurely. In contrast, unhealthy aging and chronic pain are related to risk of death. We know this information thanks to well-elaborated prior studies on diet or physical activity. However, other healthy lifestyles such as going out with friends or resting adequately (sleeping between 7-9 hours each night and napping) have been less investigated. In addition, the effect of those lifestyles in the association between unhealthy aging and chronic pain with the occurrence of cancer, cardiovascular diseases -such as heart attack, or death in British adults remained to be studied. Therefore, we will investigate the effect that combined lifestyles have in the pathway between unhealthy aging, chronic pain, and death (cancer, cardiovascular diseases, or other causes of deaths) in the UK biobank participants. These results could a) inform public health authorities on the design/update of recommendations to palliate the consequences of unhealthy aging and chronic pain through the adoption of a healthier lifestyles; b) help physicians and other health professionals counsel individual patients on the prevention of chronic diseases and death; c) generate hypothesis to be tested on clinical trials.