Salt Lake City – Is your postal code more important than your genetic code when it comes to a long and healthy life?
Genetics and lifestyle both contribute to the way people age, to the diseases they develop and their time likely to live. But the role that factors play and how much they influence the development of diseases and premature death could surprise you.
Socioeconomy and lifestyle have more to do with healthy aging than genetics, according to a major new international study published in the journal Nature Medicine That said, life choices and living conditions are much more important than genetics to live a long and healthy life.
According to the study, on 25 independent exhibitions associated with premature death, health and healthy aging diseases, “we find that the main engines or premature death and aging in our sample are smoking, status socioeconomic and deprivation, ethnicity, physical activity, live with a partner, sleep and mental and physical well-being, including the Fatigue, as well as on health exposures, including the health and body size at 10 years and maternal smoking around birth.
They note that many factors combine to form “the environmental architecture of mortality and aging”, and everyone can play a very small role, but adding them creates a “substantial quantity of variation for premature mortality, going well” which posed by genetic risk.
“Your income, your postal code and your history should not determine your chances of living a long and healthy life,” said Bryan Williams, scientist and doctor of the British Heart Foundation, in a press release. “But this pioneer study is strengthening that it is reality for too many people.”
Study the nuts and bolts
The study was conducted by researchers from Oxford Population Health in collaboration with researchers from the departments of psychiatry and anthropology at the University of Oxford; General Hospital of Massachusetts and Broad Institute, Boston; The University of Amsterdam; University of Erasmus, Rotterdam; and the University of Montpellier. They also obtained the technical aid of the Biobank China Kadoorie team.
The data that researchers used included genetic information and in -depth phenotypes on 502,505 people participating in the research and collection of British biobank data. They examined 164 environmental facts and genetic risk scores for 22 major diseases.
A key element of research was an “aging clock” which used levels of blood protein to see how old people are aging. “This has enabled them to link environmental exhibitions which predict early mortality with organic aging,” said the team in the substantive material of the study. The measure has also been validated in large studies in China and Finland.
Cornelia van Duijn, professor of epidemiology of St. Cross at Oxford Population Health and the main author of the newspaper, noted that instead of focusing on exhibitions and individual hypotheses, they used a life exhibition approach without hypothesis to see what leads to illness and death.
Genes vs lifestyle
Among the results:
- The environmental factors explained 17% of the variation in the risk of death, while the genetic predisposition “as we currently understand it” explained only 2%.
- Of the 25 environmental factors, those who have the most impact on healthy or unhealthy aging were smoking, socioeconomic status, physical activity and living conditions.
- Smoking was linked to 21 diseases, while socioeconomic factors such as household income, employment and home ownership were linked to 19 diseases. Physical activity had an impact on 17.
- Among the factors, 23 could be modified.
- Exhibitions at the beginning of life, including if your mother smoked at the time of your birth and your body weight at 10 years old, influenced aging and the risk of deaths of decades later.
- Environmental exposure had a greater effect on lung, heart and liver disease, while genetic risk was stronger for dementia and breast cancer.
“Our research shows the deep impact of the health of exhibitions that can be modified either by individuals or by policies to improve socio-economic conditions, reduce smoking or promote physical activity. Although genes play a Key role in brain conditions and certain cancers, our results highlight the opportunities to mitigate the risks of chronic lung, heart and liver disease which are causes of Handicap and death worldwide, “said Van Duijn.
She added: “Exhibitions at the beginning of life are particularly important because they show that environmental factors accelerate aging early in life, but amply leave the opportunity to prevent lasting diseases and premature death”.
Dr. Austin Argeieri, principal author of the study at Oxford Population Health and Research, researcher at the Massachusetts General Hospital, said that the approach they used was doing research the most complete “environmental factors to date And lifestyle stimulating aging and premature death. environments, our socio-economic contexts and our behaviors for the prevention of many diseases related to premature age and death.
The main dishes to remember from this article were generated with the help of large languages models and examined by our editorial team. The article, itself, is only written by man.