According to a new study, healthy lifestyle is associated with both prevention of new cancer and reduced risk for cardiometabolic disease among those who already have cancer.

Investigators assessed the impact of healthy living on 432,000 individuals aged 40 to 70 years, recruited in the UK Biobank from April 2006 through December 2010. The study included two cohorts - those with new cancers and those with previous cancer. Healthy living was found to significantly reduce the risk for incident cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and type 2 diabetes in the healthy individuals, and reduced the risk for CVD and type 2 diabetes in people who developed cancer or had a history of cancer.

Among those who did not have cancer previously, every one-point increment in healthy lifestyle index (HLI) was tied to an 8% decline in new incident cancer (hazard ratio [HR] 0.92). Over 15 years, 6.38% and 4.18% of these patients with cancer went on to develop CVD or type 2 diabetes, respectively. Healthy lifestyle reduced the risk of transition from cancer to CVD or type 2 diabetes with HRs for every one-point increase in the HLI of 0.90 and 0.84, respectively. Among cancer survivors, every one-point increase in HLI was found to be linked to a 10% decreased risk for CVD (HR 0.90) and a 13% decrease in type 2 diabetes risk (HR 0.87). The findings are published in JACC: Cardio Oncology… (Medscape)