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Unfavorable and favorable changes in modifiable risk factors and incidence of coronary heart disease: The Whitehall II cohort study

Virtanen, M; Vahtera, J; Singh-Manoux, A; Elovainio, M; Ferrie, JE; Kivimäki, M; (2018) Unfavorable and favorable changes in modifiable risk factors and incidence of coronary heart disease: The Whitehall II cohort study. International Journal of Cardiology 10.1016/j.ijcard.2018.07.005. Green open access

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Few studies have examined long-term associations of unfavorable and favorable changes in vascular risk factors with incident coronary heart disease (CHD). We examined this issue in a middle-aged disease-free population. METHODS: We used repeat data from the Whitehall II cohort study. Five biomedical, behavioral and psychosocial examinations of 8335 participants without CHD produced up to 20,357 person-observations to mimic a non-randomized pseudo-trial. After measurement of potential change in 6 risk factors twice (total cholesterol, blood pressure, smoking, overweight, psychological distress, problems in social relationships), a 5-year follow-up of CHD was undertaken. RESULTS: Incidence of CHD was 7.4/1000 person-years. Increases from normal to high cholesterol (hazard ratio, HR = 1.59, 95% CI 1.26-2.00) and from normal to high blood pressure (HR = 1.64, 95% CI 1.33-2.03), as compared to remaining at the normal level, were associated with increased risk of CHD. In contrast, decreases from high to low levels of cholesterol (HR = 0.73, 95% CI 0.58-0.91), psychological distress (HR = 0.68, 95% CI 0.51-0.90), and problems in social relationships (HR = 0.65, 95% CI 0.50-0.85), and quitting smoking (HR = 0.49, 95% CI 0.29-0.82) were associated with a reduced CHD risk compared to remaining at high risk factor levels. The highest absolute risk was associated with persistent exposure to both high cholesterol and hypertension (incidence 18.1/1000 person-years) and smoking and overweight (incidence 17.7/1000 person-years). CONCLUSIONS: While persistent exposures and changes in biological and behavioral risk factors relate to the greatest increases and reductions in 5-year risk of CHD, also favorable changes in psychosocial risk factors appear to reduce CHD risk.

Type: Article
Title: Unfavorable and favorable changes in modifiable risk factors and incidence of coronary heart disease: The Whitehall II cohort study
Location: Netherlands
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijcard.2018.07.005
Publisher version: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2018.07.005
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed.
Keywords: Behavioral, Cholesterol, Hypertension, Ischemic heart disease, Pseudo-trial, Psychosocial
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Epidemiology and Public Health
URI: https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10053291
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