Relationship between multiple healthy lifestyles and serum lipids among adults in rural China: A population-based cross-sectional study

Although several single lifestyles have been reported to meliorate serum lipid levels, there is little evidence of the relationship between multiple healthy lifestyles and lipid levels in Chinese adults. Cross-sectional data of 35,150 participants aged 18-79 years without dyslipidemia at baseline in the Henan Rural Cohort were collected from 2015 to 2017, to investigate the associations between individual and combinations of 6 healthy lifestyle factors and lipid levels. In multivariate linear regression analyses, non-current smoking, non-current alcohol consumption, regular physical exercise, healthy diet, lower body mass index, and lower waist-to-hip ratio were significantly associated with lower concentration of total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and higher concentrations of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (all P < .001). There were positive quantitative correlations between the number of healthy lifestyle factors and the low levels of lipids (all P for linear trend < 0.001). People with 6 healthy lifestyle factors had 0.72-mmol/L (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.64 to 0.81) lower TC, 1.02-mmol/L (95% CI: 0.93 to 1.11) lower TG, 0.54 mmol/L (95% CI: 0.47 to 0.61) lower LDL-C, and 0.32-mmol/L (95% CI: 0.29 to 0.34) higher HDL C, than people who had 0-1 healthy lifestyle factors. In this study, we found an association between an increased number of healthy lifestyle factors and better serum lipid profiles. The causality and temporality between maintenance of a healthy lifestyle and optimal lipid levels merit further investigations.