SEDENTARY LIFE-STYLE AND RISK OF CORONARY HEART-DISEASE IN WOMEN

Relatively few studies have assessed the prospective relationship of s edentary lifestyle and coronary heart disease (CHD) in women. We perfo rmed a nested case-control study, identifying 50 cases of acute CHD in women and 150 age-matched controls. Risk factors including sedentary lifestyle, cigarette smoking, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, total, and HDL cholesterol levels had been previously determined in this coho rt using household survey techniques. The odds ratio (OR) of CHD in se dentary women was 2.1 (95% CI 1.0-4.3, P = 0.046). The odds ratio was similar (OR = 2.3, 95% CI 1.0-5.7, P = 0.051) after adjusting for pote ntial confounders of hypertension, cigarette smoking, low HDL choleste rol, diabetes mellitus, and being U.S. born. This study suggests that sedentary lifestyle may be an independent risk factor for CHD in women , but its results are open to several contradictory interpretations. F urther studies to investigate the prospective relationship of sedentar y lifestyle and the risk of CHD in women are needed.