A healthy lifestyle is positively associated with mental health and well-being and core markers in ageing
Abstract Background Studies often evaluate mental health and well-being in association with individual health behaviours although evaluating multiple health behaviours that co-occur in real life may reveal important insights into the overall association. Also, the underlying pathways of how lifestyl...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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BMC
2022-09-01
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| Series: | BMC Medicine |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-022-02524-9 |
| _version_ | 1797998732324634624 |
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| author | Pauline Hautekiet Nelly D. Saenen Dries S. Martens Margot Debay Johan Van der Heyden Tim S. Nawrot Eva M. De Clercq |
| author_facet | Pauline Hautekiet Nelly D. Saenen Dries S. Martens Margot Debay Johan Van der Heyden Tim S. Nawrot Eva M. De Clercq |
| author_sort | Pauline Hautekiet |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Background Studies often evaluate mental health and well-being in association with individual health behaviours although evaluating multiple health behaviours that co-occur in real life may reveal important insights into the overall association. Also, the underlying pathways of how lifestyle might affect our health are still under debate. Here, we studied the mediation of different health behaviours or lifestyle factors on mental health and its effect on core markers of ageing: telomere length (TL) and mitochondrial DNA content (mtDNAc). Methods In this study, 6054 adults from the 2018 Belgian Health Interview Survey (BHIS) were included. Mental health and well-being outcomes included psychological and severe psychological distress, vitality, life satisfaction, self-perceived health, depressive and generalised anxiety disorder and suicidal ideation. A lifestyle score integrating diet, physical activity, smoking status, alcohol consumption and BMI was created and validated. On a subset of 739 participants, leucocyte TL and mtDNAc were assessed using qPCR. Generalised linear mixed models were used while adjusting for a priori chosen covariates. Results The average age (SD) of the study population was 49.9 (17.5) years, and 48.8% were men. A one-point increment in the lifestyle score was associated with lower odds (ranging from 0.56 to 0.74) for all studied mental health outcomes and with a 1.74% (95% CI: 0.11, 3.40%) longer TL and 4.07% (95% CI: 2.01, 6.17%) higher mtDNAc. Psychological distress and suicidal ideation were associated with a lower mtDNAc of − 4.62% (95% CI: − 8.85, − 0.20%) and − 7.83% (95% CI: − 14.77, − 0.34%), respectively. No associations were found between mental health and TL. Conclusions In this large-scale study, we showed the positive association between a healthy lifestyle and both biological ageing and different dimensions of mental health and well-being. We also indicated that living a healthy lifestyle contributes to more favourable biological ageing. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T10:52:01Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-83efb6dbbe534e4e9c95cbf881626ad5 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1741-7015 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T10:52:01Z |
| publishDate | 2022-09-01 |
| publisher | BMC |
| record_format | Article |
| series | BMC Medicine |
| spelling | doaj.art-83efb6dbbe534e4e9c95cbf881626ad52022-12-22T04:28:52ZengBMCBMC Medicine1741-70152022-09-0120111310.1186/s12916-022-02524-9A healthy lifestyle is positively associated with mental health and well-being and core markers in ageingPauline Hautekiet0Nelly D. Saenen1Dries S. Martens2Margot Debay3Johan Van der Heyden4Tim S. Nawrot5Eva M. De Clercq6Sciensano, Risk and Health Impact AssessmentSciensano, Risk and Health Impact AssessmentCentre for Environmental Sciences, Hasselt UniversityCentre for Environmental Sciences, Hasselt UniversitySciensano, Epidemiology and Public HealthCentre for Environmental Sciences, Hasselt UniversitySciensano, Risk and Health Impact AssessmentAbstract Background Studies often evaluate mental health and well-being in association with individual health behaviours although evaluating multiple health behaviours that co-occur in real life may reveal important insights into the overall association. Also, the underlying pathways of how lifestyle might affect our health are still under debate. Here, we studied the mediation of different health behaviours or lifestyle factors on mental health and its effect on core markers of ageing: telomere length (TL) and mitochondrial DNA content (mtDNAc). Methods In this study, 6054 adults from the 2018 Belgian Health Interview Survey (BHIS) were included. Mental health and well-being outcomes included psychological and severe psychological distress, vitality, life satisfaction, self-perceived health, depressive and generalised anxiety disorder and suicidal ideation. A lifestyle score integrating diet, physical activity, smoking status, alcohol consumption and BMI was created and validated. On a subset of 739 participants, leucocyte TL and mtDNAc were assessed using qPCR. Generalised linear mixed models were used while adjusting for a priori chosen covariates. Results The average age (SD) of the study population was 49.9 (17.5) years, and 48.8% were men. A one-point increment in the lifestyle score was associated with lower odds (ranging from 0.56 to 0.74) for all studied mental health outcomes and with a 1.74% (95% CI: 0.11, 3.40%) longer TL and 4.07% (95% CI: 2.01, 6.17%) higher mtDNAc. Psychological distress and suicidal ideation were associated with a lower mtDNAc of − 4.62% (95% CI: − 8.85, − 0.20%) and − 7.83% (95% CI: − 14.77, − 0.34%), respectively. No associations were found between mental health and TL. Conclusions In this large-scale study, we showed the positive association between a healthy lifestyle and both biological ageing and different dimensions of mental health and well-being. We also indicated that living a healthy lifestyle contributes to more favourable biological ageing.https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-022-02524-9Mental healthLifestyleBiological ageingMitochondrial DNA contentTelomere length |
| spellingShingle | Pauline Hautekiet Nelly D. Saenen Dries S. Martens Margot Debay Johan Van der Heyden Tim S. Nawrot Eva M. De Clercq A healthy lifestyle is positively associated with mental health and well-being and core markers in ageing BMC Medicine Mental health Lifestyle Biological ageing Mitochondrial DNA content Telomere length |
| title | A healthy lifestyle is positively associated with mental health and well-being and core markers in ageing |
| title_full | A healthy lifestyle is positively associated with mental health and well-being and core markers in ageing |
| title_fullStr | A healthy lifestyle is positively associated with mental health and well-being and core markers in ageing |
| title_full_unstemmed | A healthy lifestyle is positively associated with mental health and well-being and core markers in ageing |
| title_short | A healthy lifestyle is positively associated with mental health and well-being and core markers in ageing |
| title_sort | healthy lifestyle is positively associated with mental health and well being and core markers in ageing |
| topic | Mental health Lifestyle Biological ageing Mitochondrial DNA content Telomere length |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-022-02524-9 |
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