Relationship between lifestyle and change of cardiovascular risk factors based on a five-year follow-up of employees in Japan.

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between lifestyle and change of cardiovascular risk factors based on a five-year follow up. The subjects were 307 employees participating in annual health check-ups in Tokyo, Japan from 1998 to 2003. Personal health check-up data were collected on their systolic/diastolic blood pressure (SBP/DBP), serum total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), fasting serum glucose (FSG), uric acid (UA), body mass index (BMI), questionnaire on medication history and Breslow's lifestyle. Over five years, cardiovascular risk factors such as SBP/DBP, TC, TG, FBG, UA and BMI have become worse; however, some of these risk factors were significantly different after 5 yr among lifestyle groups. TG in the poor lifestyle group was significantly higher than in good or moderate lifestyle groups after adjusting for age in men. In women, SBP and BMI in poor lifestyle group were significantly higher than those in good or moderate lifestyle groups after adjusting for age and baseline values. These results show that aging is the major influencing factor of cardiovascular risk factor deterioration. At the same time, lifestyle conditions are related to changes in some cardiovascular risk factors among Japanese employees.