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Because high body iron stores have been suggested as a risk factor for acute myocardial infarction, donation of blood could theoretically reduce the risk by lowering body iron stores. For this reason, the authors tested the hypothesis that voluntary blood donation is associated with reduced risk of acute myocardial infarction in a prospective epidemiologic follow-up study in men from eastern Finland. The subjects are all participants of the Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study. A cohort of 2, 862 men aged 42–60 years were followed for an average of almost 9 years. One man (0.7%) out of 153 men who had donated blood in 24 months preceding the baseline examination experienced an acute myocardial infarction during 1984 to 1995, whereas 316 men (12.5%) of 2, 529 non-blood donors had an acute myocardial infarction (p < 0.0001 for difference between proportions). In a Cox proportional hazards model adjusting for age, examination years and all other predictive coronary disease risk factors, blood donors had a 88% reduced risk (relative hazard = 0.12, 95% confidence interval 0.02–0.86, p = 0.035) of acute myocardial infarction, compared with non-blood donors. These findings suggest that frequent blood loss through voluntary blood donations may be associated with a reduced risk of acute myocardial infarction in middle-aged men. Am J Epidemiol 1998; 148: 445–51. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cynical hostility has been associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality; yet few studies have investigated this relation in population-based samples, and little is known about underlying mechanisms. This study examined the association between hostility, measured by the eight-item Cynical Distrust Scale, and risk for all-cause and cardiovascular mortality and incident myocardial infarction. Subjects were 2,125 men, ages 42–60 years, from the Kuopio lschemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study, a longitudinal study of unestablished and traditional risk factors for ischemic heart disease, mortality, and other outcomes. There were 177 deaths (73 cardiovascular) in 9 years of follow-up. Men with hostility scores in the top quartile were at more than twice the risk of all-cause mortality (relative hazards (RH) 2.30, 95% confidence interval (Cl) 1.47–3.59) and cardiovascular mortality (RH 2.70, 95% Cl 1.27–5.76), relative to men with scores in the lowest quartile. Among 1,599 men without previous myocardial infarction or angina, high scorers also had an increased risk of myocardial infarction (RH 2.18, 95% CI 1.01–4.70). Biologic and socioeconomic risk factors, social support, and prevalent diseases had minimal impact on these associations, whereas adjustments for the behavioral risk factors of smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and body mass index substantially weakened the relations. Simultaneous risk factor adjustment eliminated the observed associations. Results show that high levels of hostility are associated with increased risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality and incident myocardial infarction and that these effects are mediated primarily through behavioral risk factors. Am J Epidemiol 1997;146:142-52. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much remains to be understood about how low socioeconomic status (SES) increases cardiovascular disease and mortality risk. Data from the Kuopio Ischemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study (1984–1993) were used to estimate the associations between acute myocardial infarction and income, all-cause mortality, and cardiovascular mortality in a population-based sample of 2, 272 Finnish men, with adjustment for 23 biologic, behavioral, psychologic, and social risk factors. Compared with the highest income quintile, those in the bottom quintile had age-adjusted relative hazards of 3.14 (95% confidence interval (Cl) 1.77–5.56), 2.66 (95% Cl 1.25–5.66), and 4.34 (95% Cl 1.95–9.66) for all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, and AMI, respectively. After adjustment for risk factors, the relative hazards for the same comparisons were 1.32 (95% Cl 0.70–2.49), 0.70 (95% Cl 0.29–1.69), and 2.83 (95% Cl 1.14–7.00). In the lowest income quintile, adjustment for risk factors reduced the excess relative risk of all-cause mortality by 85%, that of cardiovascular mortality by 118%, and that of acute myocardial infarction by 45%. These data show how the association between SES and cardiovascular mortality and all-cause mortality is mediated by known risk factor pathways, but full “explanations” for these associations will need to encompass why these biologic, behavioral, psychologic, and social risk factors are differentially distributed by SES. Am J Epidemiol 1996; 144: 934-42. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors evaluated the association between plasma vitamin E content and progression of eye lens opacrities. A total of 410 hypercholesterolemic eastern Finnish men participated in the study from January 1990 to September 1993 in Kuopio, Finland. Lens opacities were classified three times at 18-month intervals using the Lens Opacities Classification System II. A low plasma vitamin E level (lowest quartile) was associated with a 3.7-fold excess risk (95% confidence interval 1.2–11.8) of the progression of earty cortical lens opacities compared with the highest quartile (p = 0.028). In addition, the number of cigarettes smoked daily was a significant predictor of the progression of cortical lens opacity (relative risk = 1.06 per cigarette, 95% confidence interval 1.003–1.12). The progression of nuclear lens opacrities was not associated with either the plasma vitamin E content or smoking. The data suggest that low plasma vitamin E content may be associated with increased risk of the progression of early cortical lens opacity. Am J Epidemiol 1996; 144: 496–500. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]