Healthy lifestyle, DNA methylation age acceleration, and incident risk of coronary heart disease

Clinical Epigenetics

Table 3 Associations between lifestyle factors and Δage, and the risk of coronary heart disease mediated through Δage

	Lifestyle factors and Δage *		Mediation effect
	Effect size (SE)	P value	Proportion mediated, %	P value for ACME
Smoking
No. of cigarette equivalents/day†	0.008 (0.003)	0.017	10.0	0.025
Alcohol drinking
Average pure alcohol (g)/day	0.0004 (0.001)	0.777
Dietary habits
Fresh vegetables, days/week	0.020 (0.033)	0.551
Fresh fruits, days/week	0.014 (0.015)	0.354
Red meat, days/week	−0.041 (0.015)	0.007	17.8	0.008
Physical activity (METs-h)	0.002 (0.002)	0.387
Adiposity
Body mass index (kg/m²)	0.012 (0.009)	0.168
Waist circumference, cm **	0.008 (0.006)	0.186
Waist-to-hip ratio **	1.530 (0.566)	0.007	4.7	0.017
Fat percentage (%)**	−0.008 (0.009)	0.371

ACME Average causal mediation effects; Bold text represents statistically significant results (P values < 0.05)
^*Basic adjustment included age, sex, study area, fasting time, education level, marital status, batch, and the estimated proportion of CD4 + T cell, CD8 + T cell, B cell, natural killer, monocytes, and granulocyte. All lifestyle factors were included in the model simultaneously
^† To avoid misleadingly elevated risk, former smokers who stopped smoking for illness were categorized as the current smoker
^**Additionally adjusted for body mass index (kg/m²)

ISSN: 1868-7083