Diseases and Life Style: A Large-scale Cohort Study in Japan

265, 118 adults aged 40 and above in 6 Prefectures in Japan were followed up for 17 years and age standardized mortality rates from each cause of death were compared by life style variables studied at the time of enrollment. Multifactor-multidisease risk matrix thus constructed revealed that out of 44 causes of death 65.9% and 0% of them showed significantly higher and lower risk respectively in daily cigarette smokers while 2.3% and 34.1% of them showed significantly higher and lower risk respectively in daily consumers of green-yellow vegetables. Possible mechanisms of such associations and effective strategies achieving healthy aging were discussed based on these results.