In research published this week in PLoS Medicine , results from the Shanghai Women's Health Study reveal the impact of lifestyle-related factors on mortality in a cohort of Chinese women – confirming the results from other Western research studies.
The large prospective cohort study by Wei Zheng and colleagues (from Vanderbilt University & Shanghai Cancer Institute) showed that lifestyle factors other than active smoking and alcohol consumption, have a major combined impact on total mortality on a scale comparable to the effect of smoking. For example healthier lifestyle-related factors, including normal weight, lower waist-hip ratio, participation in exercise, never being exposed to spousal smoking, and higher daily fruit and vegetable intake, were significantly and independently associated with a lower risk of total, and cause-specific, mortality.
Funding: Supported by National Institutes of Health grant R37 CA070867. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Nechuta SJ, Shu X-O, Li H-L, Yang G, Xiang Y-B, et al. (2010) Combined Impact of Lifestyle-Related Factors on Total and Cause-Specific Mortality among Chinese Women: Prospective Cohort Study. PLoS Med 7(9): e1000339. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000339
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PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: www.plos.org/press/plme-07-09-zheng.pdf
CONTACT:
Wei Zheng
Vanderbilt University
Medicine
2525 West End Avenue
8th floor
Nashville, TN 37203-1738
United States of America
615-936-0682
615-936-8241 (fax)
Wei.zheng@Vanderbilt.edu
PLOS Medicine