Exercise and Health

摘要

Many of the papers in this month's Journal deal with major noncommunicable diseases and a range of ‘lifestyle’ factors associated with them. The Cambridge risk score, derived from routinely collected patient data that can readily be extracted from general practice records, has been shown by Chamnan and colleagues (page 590) to perform well as a predictor of cardiovascular events. It may well find a place in practice to identify patients at elevated risk, who can then be targeted for tailored riskreduction interventions. The importance of dealing with risk factors is dramatically highlighted by Iversen and colleagues (page 563) who have conducted a further analysis of data collected in the course of the RCGP Oral Contraception Study. They conclude that, assuming causality between (as opposed to association with) lifestyle risk factors and mortality, 60% of the deaths recorded in the study could have been prevented by stopping smoking, exercising more, losing weight, and reducing alcohol intake. Inactivity and obesity were the two factors most strongly associated with mortality.