A Prospective Evaluation of Modifiable Lifestyle Factors in Relation to Peripheral Artery Disease Risk

Objective: To examine the joint associations of multiple modifiable lifestyle factors with the risk of symptomatic peripheral artery disease (PAD) referred to secondary care in the healthy, community based population. Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted including 37 633 men from the Cohort of Swedish Men and 31 816 women from the Swedish Mammography Cohort who were free of clinically diagnosed PAD and 45 – 83 years of age at baseline. Healthy lifestyle factors were defined as avoidance of excessive alcohol consumption (≤ 2 drinks/day), high adherence to a healthy diet (modified Mediterranean diet score ≥ 4), moderate to high level of physical activity (≥ 30 minutes/day), and never smoking. PAD cases were ascertained by linkage with the Swedish National Patient Registry. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to analyse the data. Results: During a mean of 18.1 years of follow up (from 1 January 1998 to 31 December 2019), 2 795 incident symptomatic PAD cases were ascertained. All healthy lifestyle factors were associated with a reduced PAD risk. Individuals who adhered to all four healthy lifestyle factors had a 45% (95% confidence interval [CI] 38 – 51) lower risk of PAD compared with the remainder of the population (0 – 3 healthy lifestyle factors) and a 71% (95% CI 61 – 79) lower risk of PAD compared with the group without any healthy lifestyle factor. Adherence to the combination of four healthy lifestyle factors was estimated to prevent 40% (95% CI 34 – 47) of PAD cases. Conclusion: Healthy lifestyle factors were associated with a reduced risk of PAD.