Ever been told that the reason you are so healthy is not because you exercise but because you have “good genes”?
Well, that's just one more excuse for not getting on a bike for a dose of physical activity, according to a new study from Oxford University.
Of the 25 independent environmental factors identified, smoking, socioeconomic status, physical activity, and living conditions had the most impact on mortality and biological ageing.
Smoking was associated with 21 diseases; socioeconomic factors such as household income, home ownership, and employment status, were associated with 19 diseases; and physical activity was associated with 17 diseases.
Key findings were that environmental factors explained 17% of the variation in risk of death, compared to less than 2% explained by genetic predisposition.
"Our research demonstrates the profound health impact of exposures that can be changed either by individuals or through policies to improve socioeconomic conditions, reduce smoking, or promote physical activity,” senior paper author and St Cross Professor of Epidemiology at Oxford Population Health, Professor Cornelia van Duijn, said.
"While genes play a key role in brain conditions and some cancers, our findings highlight opportunities to mitigate the risks of chronic diseases of the lung, heart and liver, which are leading causes of disability and death globally.
"The early life exposures are particularly important as they show that environmental factors accelerate ageing early in life but leave ample opportunity to prevent long-lasting diseases and early death.”
The researchers used data from nearly half a million UK Biobank participants to assess the influence of 164 environmental factors and genetic risk scores for 22 major diseases on ageing, age-related diseases, and premature death. The study is published in Nature Medicine: www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03483-9
The authors used a unique measure of ageing (a new 'ageing clock’) to monitor how rapidly people are ageing using blood protein levels. This enabled them to link environmental exposures that predict early mortality with biological ageing: www.ndph.ox.ac.uk/news/proteins-carried-in-the-blood-offer-new-insights-into-ageing-and-age-related-disease-risk
Dr Austin Argentieri, lead author of the study, said the approach allowed researchers to “quantify the relative contributions of the environment and genetics to ageing, providing the most comprehensive overview to date of the environmental and lifestyle factors driving ageing and premature death.”
“These findings underscore the potential benefits of focusing interventions on our environments, socioeconomic contexts, and behaviours for the prevention of many age-related diseases and premature death.”
The research shows that while many of the individual exposures played a small part in premature death, the combined effect of multiple exposures explained a large proportion of premature mortality variation.
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