2007 Volume 1 Issue 2 Pages 55-63
Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) has recently been receiving much attention in Japan. Though some earlier studies discussed the effects of eating behavior or physical activity in developing MetS, it is not clear which of them has the greater effect. The study population was 35,415 males (average age: 45.3 years old) who have had health checkups at a health care center established by one of the largest manufacturers in Japan during the period from 1995 to 2005. They are registered in the study cohort retrospectively using the year when their checkup result was first found in the record files during the period. The exposures are life-style risk factors identified by questionnaires submitted at the checkups and the event is to become diagnosed with MetS based on the estimated abdominal circumference and the diagnostic criteria proposed by 8 Japanese medical academic societies. The impact of each exposure on contributing to the event is examined based on hazard ratios developed by Cox's proportional hazard model. After adjusting for age and family history by multivariate analysis, the hazard ratios of "slow eating: no" to "yes" is 1.228 (p<0.001), "sedentary work" to "standing work, etc" 1.195 (p<0.001), "drinking: 3 times or more per week" to "less than 3 times" 1.094 (p=0.003), "sleeping: less than 6 hours" to "6 hours or more" 1.085 (p=0.013). The effects of eating behavior and physical activity are suggested to be almost the same at approximately 1.2, and those of drinking and sleeping hours appear to be less, at around 1.1.
