Unhealthy habits are costing Ontarians 7.5 years of life

Study examines impact of smoking, alcohol, diet, physical activity and stress

TORONTO, April 2, 2012 /Canada NewsWire/ - Unhealthy habits are costing Ontarians 7.5 years of life. However, by reducing five unhealthy behaviours Ontarians could become the healthiest people in the entire country. New research from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), Public Health Ontario (PHO), the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) shows 60 per cent of deaths in Ontario are attributed to smoking, alcohol, poor diet, lack of physical activity and stress but suggests Ontarians could make remarkable gains in life expectancy if we all collectively made changes towards healthier living.

"Individually, if we all make one change like smoking less or being more physically active, then collectively we would be significantly healthier and live much longer," says Doug Manuel, lead author and Senior Scientist at ICES and Senior Scientist at OHRI.

Overall, Ontarians would gain 7.5 years of life expectancy if everyone were in the healthiest category for all five behavioural risks examined. Smoking, physical inactivity and poor diet each contribute 2 to 2.5 years of lost life expectancy. If everyone modified only their most important health risk, overall life expectancy would increase by up to 3.7 years.

"The evidence shows that these five risk factors steal both years from our lives and quality from our lives", says Dr. Vivek Goel, President and CEO of PHO. "If we want sustained improvements in health, we need to focus our collective efforts on reducing these risk factors, both individually and at a population health level."

The study found:

...60 per cent of all deaths in Ontario are attributable to five risks
...Almost all Ontarians have at least one of the five risks
...Increasing physical activity and improving diet are the most common changes that Ontarians could make to improve their health
...Improving healthy behaviour will not only improve length of life, but also the amount of healthy life

"The impact that modifiable behaviours have on our health is astounding. Not only will we increase our life expectancy but being healthier will mean there will be fewer demands on both formal care giving like hospitals and informal care like family," says Manuel, who is also affiliated with ICES@uOttawa and is an Associate Professor in Faculty of Medicine at uOttawa.

Author block: Manuel DG, Perez R, Bennett C, Rosella L, Taljaard M, Roberts M, Sanderson R, Meltem T, Tanuseputro P, Manson H.

Seven More Years: The impact of smoking, alcohol, diet, physical activity and stress on health and life expectancy in Ontario. An ICES/PHO Report is being published April 2, 2012.

More detailed study findings on the ICES website at: www.ices.on.ca and on the Public Health Ontario website: www.oahpp.ca/sevenmoreyears.html

ICES is an independent, non-profit organization that uses population-based health information to produce knowledge on a broad range of health care issues. Our unbiased evidence provides measures of health system performance, a clearer understanding of the shifting health care needs of Ontarians, and a stimulus for discussion of practical solutions to optimize scarce resources. ICES knowledge is highly regarded in Canada and abroad, and is widely used by government, hospitals, planners, and practitioners to make decisions about care delivery and to develop policy.

Public Health Ontario is a Crown corporation dedicated to protecting and promoting the health of all Ontarians and reducing inequities in health. As a hub organization, Public Health Ontario links public health practitioners, front-line health workers and researchers to the best scientific intelligence and knowledge from around the world. For more information about Public Health Ontario, visit www.oahpp.ca.

The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) is the research arm of The Ottawa Hospital and is an affiliated institute of the University of Ottawa, closely associated with the University's Faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences. The OHRI includes more than 1,500 scientists, clinical investigators, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staff conducting research to improve the understanding, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human disease. Research at OHRI is supported by The Ottawa Hospital Foundation. www.ohri.ca.

Ontario Health Study becomes largest single health study in Canadian history

Over 175,000 registered participants complete online questionnaire at ontariohealthstudy.ca

TORONTO, March 16, 2012 /Canada NewsWire/ - More than 175,000 Ontarians have joined the Ontario Health Study (OHS), the ambitious research effort designed to help scientists understand the complex factors behind heart disease, cancer, diabetes, asthma, Alzheimer's and other common diseases. The milestone makes the OHS the largest single health study in Canadian history, and one of the most important health research efforts in the world.

"The Ontario Health Study is being watched around the globe because of the novelty of its online approach, the significance of its large scale and the diversity of participants," said Professor Lyle Palmer, Executive Scientific Director of the Ontario Health Study. "We will be following individuals over their entire lifespan, giving us the ability to look at the development and progression of common conditions in the general population."

Every Ontario adult aged 18 and over can enroll in the OHS and complete an online health questionnaire at ontariohealthstudy.ca. The questionnaire, which takes 30 to 40 minutes to complete, asks participants to provide information about health-related subjects such as personal and family medical history, where they live, and their lifestyle and diet. Approximately 9.5 million Ontarians are eligible to volunteer for the Study.

"The opportunity of the Study is enormous and the larger the pool of participants, the richer our research insights and outcomes will be," said Palmer. "We have exceeded our expectations, but the goal is to recruit one million Ontarians into the Study."

All information provided to the OHS by participants is protected by embedded privacy tools built into the core of the Study's technology, delivering the maximum degree of privacy and ensuring that personal data is "de-identified" and automatically protected. When participants sign up for the Study and complete the online questionnaire, all identifying information, such as their name and address, is separated from the health information provided.

"It is important that we continue to recruit participants from all regions of the province as lifestyle, diet, culture, ethnicity and environmental factors vary greatly from region to region," said Palmer. "This range and diversity is a defining difference in our work and one of the key factors that drew me to the opportunity."

Palmer came to Canada in 2010 to lead the Ontario Health Study, leaving his post as the founding Winthrop Chair in Genetic Epidemiology and the founding Director of the Centre for Genetic Epidemiology & Biostatistics at the University of Western Australia, where he was also a Professor in the Schools of Medicine & Pharmacology and Population Health.

Prior to that he was Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of Statistical Genomics at the Channing Laboratory, Boston.

"Simply put, the Ontario Health Study is big science capable of advancing scientific knowledge related to how people develop certain diseases, as well as what can be done to prevent them," said Palmer.

More than 320 senior scientists and clinicians at universities, hospitals and research institutes across the province oversee the Study, collaborating on its development and the design of the online health questionnaire. They will also work in partnership on future follow-up questionnaires as the Study follows participants' health over the coming decades.

Surpassing 175,000 participants puts the Ontario Health Study on an upward trajectory for its next phase, set to roll out later this spring.



About the Ontario Health Study

The not-for-profit Study is funded by four organizations: the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Cancer Care Ontario, Public Health Ontario and the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer. The Ontario Health Study is part of the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project, which is made up of five regional health studies across Canada.

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