"Is Health and Aging Determined by Genetics or Effort? ... Research Results Released"

UK Research Team: "Lifestyle and Environment Have a Greater Impact on Health and Aging Than Genetics"
Environmental Factors Account for 17%, Genetic Factors Less Than 2%
Smoking and Physical Activity Have the Greatest Influence

A study has found that various environmental factors such as lifestyle and socioeconomic conditions have a greater impact on health and aging than genetics. In particular, smoking, socioeconomic status, physical activity, and living conditions were found to have the greatest influence on mortality and biological aging.

On the 20th, Yonhap News reported, "Professor Cornelia van Duijn's team at the University of Oxford in the UK used data from about 500,000 participants in the UK Biobank and tracked the effects of 164 lifestyle and environmental factors and genetic risk scores for 22 major diseases on aging, disease, and premature death over 12.5 years, reaching this conclusion," according to the medical journal Nature Medicine.

According to the report, Dr. Austin Argentieri, the first author of the paper, explained, "This study quantifies the relative contributions of environment and genetics to aging and provides a comprehensive overview of environmental and lifestyle factors that cause aging and premature death." During the follow-up period, there were a total of 31,716 deaths from all causes, of which 74.5% were premature deaths occurring before the age of 75.

Analysis showed that environmental factors accounted for 17% of the variation in mortality risk during the follow-up period, while genetic factors accounted for less than 2%. Among the 25 independent environmental factors identified, smoking, socioeconomic status, physical activity, and living conditions were confirmed to have the greatest impact on mortality and biological aging. Smoking was found to significantly affect 21 diseases, socioeconomic factors such as household income, home ownership, and employment status were related to 19 diseases, and physical activity was associated with 17 diseases.

Additionally, 23 of the identified factors were found to be modifiable through individual or policy efforts. Among these, factors exposed early in life, such as weight at age 10 and maternal smoking before and after birth, were shown to influence aging and premature death risk 30 to 80 years later. Furthermore, environmental exposures had a greater impact on lung, heart, and liver diseases, while genetic factors were found to have a larger influence on dementia and breast cancer.

Professor van Duijn stated, "This study suggests that lifestyle or environmental factors that can be changed through policies improving socioeconomic conditions, reducing smoking, and promoting physical activity may have a greater impact on health than genetic factors." She added, "While genes play an important role in brain diseases and some cancers, this study shows there are opportunities to mitigate the risk of chronic diseases such as lung, heart, and liver diseases?which are major causes of disability and death worldwide?through lifestyle or environmental changes."

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