Four for More

Among industrialized countries, incidences of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) – namely, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory disorders – are on the rise. Eva Martin-Diener, from the University of Zurich (Switzerland), and colleagues assessed data collected on 16,721 participants aged between 16 and 90 years, enrolled in the Swiss National Cohort (SNC). The team correlated data on tobacco consumption, fruit consumption, physical activity and alcohol consumption for the study subjects with the corresponding deaths up to 2008.  Identifying the four main risk factors for NCDs as: tobacco smoking, an unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and harmful alcohol consumption, the researchers translated the consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle into numbers. An individual who smokes, drinks a lot, is physically inactive and has an unhealthy diet has 2.5 fold higher mortality risk in epidemiological terms than an individual who looks after his/her health.  The study authors conclude that: “The combined impact of four behavioural [non-communicable disease] risk factors on survival probability was comparable in size to a 10-year age difference.”