Adherence
Adherence to ideal combined lifestyle behaviors (smoking, BMI, physical activity, diet) significantly reduces the risk of incident cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, regardless of an individual's genetic risk score.
Focus on the four pillars: don't smoke, keep your weight in a healthy range, eat a diet rich in key components, and stay physically active. Doing this well significantly lowers your risk of heart disease and diabetes, even if you have a high genetic predisposition. Your lifestyle choices matter just as much for high-risk individuals as they do for low-risk ones.
In this large contemporary population, genetic composition and combined health behaviors and factors had a log-additive effect on the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. The relative effects of poor lifestyle were comparable between genetic risk groups.
Why this rating
Large prospective cohort (n=339,003), rigorous statistical adjustments, and high significance thresholds.
Source
Associations of Combined Genetic and Lifestyle Risks With Incident Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes in the UK Biobank Study
M. Abdullah Said et al. · JAMA Cardiology · 2018
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