Lifestyle Risk Factors and All-Cause and Cardiovascular Disease Mortality: Data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging

This study examined the association between lifestyle risk factors and all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality in 9945 Korea adults (56% women) aged 45 years and older. Smoking, heavy alcohol intake, underweight or obesity, physical inactivity, and unintentional weight loss (UWL) were included as risk factors. During 9.6 ± 2.0 years of follow-up, there were a total of 1530 cases of death from all causes, of which 365 cases were from CVD. Compared to a zero risk factor (hazard ratio, HR = 1), the crude HR of all-cause mortality was 1.864 (95% CI, 1.509-2.303) for one risk factor, 2.487 (95% confidence interval, CI, 2.013-3.072) for two risk factors, and 3.524 (95% CI, 2.803-4.432) for three or more risk factors. Compared to a zero risk factor (HR = 1), the crude HR of CVD mortality was 2.566 (95% CI, 1.550-4.250) for one risk factor, 3.655 (95% CI, 2.211-6.043) for two risk factor, and 5.416 (95% CI, 3.185-9.208) for three or more risk factors. The HRs for all-cause and CVD mortality remained significant even after adjustments for measured covariates. The current findings showed that five lifestyle risk factors, including smoking, at-risk alcohol consumption, underweight/obesity, physical inactivity, and UWL, were significantly associated with an increased risk of all-cause and CVD mortality in Korean adults.