Association of lifestyle change with incident stroke and its subtypes

Objective  To explore the association of lifestyle and its changes with incident stroke in the middle-aged and older population. Methods  A total of 18 293 participants who were free of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, or missing data on lifestyle at baseline were selected and followed until December 2018 from Dongfeng-Tongji cohort. The healthy lifestyle score included the sum of five factors: non-smoking, moderate physical activity, balanced diet, normal weight, and appropriate sleep duration. Cox regression was adopted to estimate the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) of lifestyle and its changes with stroke. Results  During the 9.5- years of follow-up, 1 549 (8.5%) stroke events were documented. Comparing with ≤1 score group at baseline, the HR (95% CI) of stroke was 0.83 (0.72-0.95), 0.72 (0.63-0.83), and 0.54 (0.45-0.66) for those with scores of 2, 3, and ≥4, respectively, after adjustment of confounders. The results of five- year lifestyle change (baseline to 2013 follow-up) showed that maintenance of ≥4 scores in healthy lifestyle had 0.39- fold (HR=0.39, 95% CI: 0.23-0.67) risk for incident stroke, compared to maintenance of ≤1 score group. Increment in healthy lifestyle score from 2-3 to ≥4 had 0.55- fold (HR=0.55, 95% CI: 0.37-0.81) risk of incident stroke; improvement from ≤1 to ≥4 scores showed no protective effects for stroke (HR=1.17, 95% CI: 0.58-2.36). Conclusions  Among middle-aged and older Chinese adults, early improvement and long-term maintenance of a healthy lifestyle are most beneficial for preventing and controlling stroke.