Lifestyle trajectories in middle-aged adults and their relationship with health indicators.

Introduction: Understanding the impact of different lifestyle trajectories on health preservation and disease risk is crucial for effective interventions.

Methods: This study analyzed lifestyle engagement over five years in 3,013 healthy adults aged 40-70 from the Barcelona Brain Health Initiative using K-means clustering. Nine modifiable risk factors were considered, including cognitive, physical, and social activity, vital plan, diet, obesity, smoking, alcohol consumption, and sleep. Self-reported diagnoses of new diseases at different time-points after baseline allowed to explore the association between these five profiles and health outcomes.

Results: The data-driven analysis classified subjects into five lifestyle profiles, revealing associations with health behaviors and risk factors. Those exhibiting high scores in health-promoting behaviors and low-risk behaviors, demonstrate a reduced likelihood of developing diseases ( < 0.001). In contrast, profiles with risky habits showed distinct risks for psychiatric, neurological, and cardiovascular diseases. Participant's lifestyle trajectories remained relatively stable over time.

Discussion: Our findings have identified risk for distinct diseases associated to specific lifestyle patterns. These results could help in the personalization of interventions based on data-driven observation of behavioral patterns and policies that promote a healthy lifestyle and can lead to better health outcomes for people in an aging society.