Association between lifestyle factors and quality- adjusted life years in the EPIC-NL cohort

H.P. Fransen, A.M. May, J.W.J. Beulens, E.A. Struijk, G.A. De Wit, J.M.A. Boer, N.C. Onland-Moret, J. Hoekstra, Y.T.V. Der Schouw, H.B. Bueno-De-mesquita, P.H.M. Peeters

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Abstract

© 2014 Fransen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.The aim of our study was to relate four modifiable lifestyle factors (smoking status, body mass index, physical activity and diet) to health expectancy, using quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) in a prospective cohort study. Data of the prospective EPIC-NL study were used, including 33,066 healthy men and women aged 20-70 years at baseline (1993-7), followed until 31-12-2007 for occurrence of disease and death. Smoking status, body mass index, physical activity and adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet (excluding alcohol) were investigated separately and combined into a healthy lifestyle score, ranging from 0 to 4. QALYs were used as summary measure of healthy life expectancy, combining a person's life expectancy with a weight for quality of life when having a chronic disease. For lifestyle factors analyzed separately the number of years living longer in good health varied from 0.12 year to 0.84 year, after adjusting for covariates. A combination of the four lifestyle factors was positively associated with higher QALYs (P-trend <0.0001). A healthy lifestyle score of 4 compared to a score of 0 was associated with almost a 2 years longer life in good health (1.75 QALYs [95% CI 1.37, 2.14]).
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere111480
JournalPLOS ONE
Volume9
Issue number11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2014

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