How Diet, Stress, and Lifestyle Shape the Exposome
How Diet, Stress, and Lifestyle Shape the Exposome
The exposome encompasses the complete range of environmental influences experienced by a person from conception through the end of life. It includes chemical pollutants and occupational hazards, but it also extends to food, physical activity, sleep, psychological stress, social relationships, neighborhood conditions, smoking, alcohol use, medications, and other features of everyday life.
Unlike the genome, the exposome changes continuously. Its different components interact with one another and with a person’s biology. Diet may alter the gut microbiome, stress may influence food choices and sleep, neighborhood design may affect physical activity, and socioeconomic conditions may determine access to nutritious food, green space, healthcare, and safe housing. Understanding these combined influences can help explain why people with similar genetic backgrounds sometimes experience very different health outcomes.
Diet and the Food Exposome
Food is one of the most frequent and complex environmental exposures. The dietary exposome includes nutrients, dietary patterns, food additives, contaminants, packaging chemicals, preparation methods, meal timing, and substances produced when food is metabolized.
Dietary patterns rich in vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and other minimally processed foods are generally associated with better cardiovascular and metabolic health. Mediterranean and healthful plant-based diets may reduce inflammation and support beneficial gut microorganisms. Diets dominated by ultra-processed foods, refined carbohydrates, added sugars, unhealthy fats, and certain additives may contribute to obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, inflammation, and other adverse outcomes.
The effects of food are not identical for everyone. Genetics, metabolic health, medications, previous exposures, physical activity, and the composition of the gut microbiome can cause individuals to respond differently to the same meal. This variability is one reason exposome research increasingly examines complete dietary patterns and personalized biological responses instead of studying isolated nutrients alone.
Stress and the Psychosocial Exposome
The psychosocial exposome includes chronic stress, discrimination, financial insecurity, childhood adversity, caregiving, job strain, loneliness, neighborhood disadvantage, and other social experiences. These conditions can become biologically embedded through the nervous, endocrine, metabolic, and immune systems.
Short-term stress responses help the body adapt to immediate challenges. Persistent stress, however, can produce allostatic load—the accumulated physiological cost of repeatedly activating stress-response systems. Chronic exposure may disrupt hormonal regulation, increase inflammation, impair immunity, interfere with sleep, alter appetite, and contribute to cardiovascular and metabolic disease.
Experiences during childhood and pregnancy may have especially lasting consequences. Early adversity and prenatal stress can influence brain development, emotional regulation, immune activity, metabolism, and later disease susceptibility. Supportive relationships, social connection, economic security, mindfulness practices, access to nature, and other protective conditions may help reduce some of these effects.
Physical Activity and the Built Environment
Physical activity is both a personal behavior and a response to the surrounding environment. Regular movement can improve cardiovascular health, glucose regulation, muscle and bone strength, mood, sleep, immune function, and cognitive health. Habitual exercise may also reduce chronic low-grade inflammation and influence the gut microbiome.
Sedentary behavior is a separate exposure. Long periods of sitting are associated with greater risks of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, some cancers, and premature mortality, even among people who exercise occasionally. Frequent movement throughout the day therefore matters in addition to scheduled exercise.
Neighborhood design strongly influences opportunities for activity. Sidewalks, public transportation, connected streets, recreational facilities, traffic safety, green space, and nearby services can encourage walking and social interaction. Car-dependent development, unsafe streets, pollution, excessive noise, and limited access to parks may discourage movement and compound other health risks.
Sleep, Circadian Rhythm, and Recovery
Sleep affects nearly every major biological system. Inadequate or irregular sleep is associated with impaired attention, depression, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and increased risk of injuries. Sleep restriction can alter glucose regulation, appetite hormones, food preferences, immune activity, and the body’s response to stress.
Circadian rhythms coordinate sleep, metabolism, hormone production, and other daily biological processes. Shift work, nighttime light, irregular schedules, social jetlag, and late eating can place behavior out of alignment with the body’s internal clock. This misalignment may contribute to metabolic dysfunction, mood disturbances, and cardiovascular risk.
Sleep is also closely connected with other parts of the exposome. Stress can interfere with sleep, while insufficient sleep can intensify emotional reactivity and encourage consumption of calorie-dense foods. Consistent sleep and wake times, suitable light exposure, regular activity, and appropriately timed meals may support circadian health.
Smoking, Alcohol, and Other Lifestyle Exposures
Tobacco smoke is a major preventable exposure that damages nearly every organ. It contributes to cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, inflammation, and molecular changes in gene regulation. Secondhand smoke adds to the exposure burden of people who do not smoke.
Alcohol is a toxic and psychoactive exposure associated with injuries, dependence, cancer, liver disease, and other health problems. Its effects may interact with diet, medication use, stress, genetics, and existing medical conditions. Population-level research indicates that health risks generally increase with greater consumption.
Lifestyle factors often operate in combination. Avoiding tobacco, limiting or avoiding alcohol, eating a nutritious diet, maintaining regular physical activity, and obtaining sufficient sleep are collectively associated with longer life expectancy and more years lived without major chronic diseases.
The Gut Microbiome and Biological Responses
The gut microbiome is an important link between external exposures and internal biology. Diet, medications, exercise, stress, infection, smoking, geography, and social conditions can all influence microbial communities. In turn, microorganisms produce metabolites that affect digestion, immunity, inflammation, metabolism, and communication between the gut and brain.
Dietary fiber supports microorganisms that produce compounds involved in intestinal and immune health. Fermented foods may increase microbial diversity in some individuals, while low-fiber dietary patterns can reduce diversity. Food additives, artificial sweeteners, and abrupt dietary changes may also alter microbial composition and function.
Psychological stress can modify the intestinal environment and microbial communities. Microbial changes may then influence stress responses, mood, and immune regulation. These two-way relationships demonstrate why diet, stress, and lifestyle should not be treated as isolated exposures.
Social Conditions and Unequal Exposures
Health-related choices are shaped by social and economic circumstances. Income, education, housing, working conditions, transportation, food prices, neighborhood resources, and discrimination affect the exposures people encounter and the options available to them.
Food insecurity combines inadequate access to nutritious food with uncertainty and chronic stress. People experiencing food insecurity may face disrupted eating patterns, medication tradeoffs, depression, anxiety, and increased cardiometabolic risk. Marketing practices and the unequal distribution of supermarkets, restaurants, parks, and healthcare services can further influence exposure patterns.
Social isolation and loneliness are also associated with poorer health and increased mortality risk. Conversely, supportive relationships, volunteering, community participation, optimism, and a sense of purpose may promote psychological resilience and healthier aging.
Life-Course and Intergenerational Effects
The exposome begins before birth. Maternal nutrition, stress, chemical exposures, health behaviors, and social conditions can influence fetal development and may affect both the pregnant person and the developing child. Some early exposures can shape metabolism, immune function, respiratory health, neurodevelopment, and later obesity risk.
Childhood is another sensitive period because biological systems and behavioral patterns are still developing. Diet, sleep, physical activity, family stress, neighborhood conditions, pollution, and access to supportive environments can interact to influence lifelong health.
Exposures continue to accumulate and change during adulthood and aging. Their effects may be reflected in inflammation, oxidative stress, metabolic dysfunction, epigenetic changes, cellular aging, and alterations in the microbiome. Exposome research therefore examines not only individual exposures but also their timing, duration, intensity, and cumulative effects.
Integrated Exposome Research
Traditional health research frequently studies one exposure at a time. Exposome research attempts to measure many chemical, dietary, behavioral, psychological, and social factors simultaneously. Questionnaires, wearable devices, environmental sensors, geographic data, medical records, metabolomics, epigenetics, and microbiome analysis can all contribute to this work.
Exposome-wide association studies identify patterns among hundreds of possible influences. Researchers have used integrated exposure scores to investigate diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular health, brain aging, childhood development, and premature mortality. These studies suggest that modifiable environmental and lifestyle conditions can explain substantial differences in health beyond inherited genetic variation.
Important challenges remain. Exposures change over time, measurements may be incomplete, and social or behavioral factors can be difficult to separate from one another. Associations also do not always establish causation. Nevertheless, integrated exposome research offers a more realistic representation of how health develops within everyday environments.
Prevention and Public Health
The exposome framework shifts attention toward preventable and modifiable causes of disease. Individual practices such as nutritious eating, regular movement, consistent sleep, stress management, smoking avoidance, and social connection can support health. However, individual behavior alone cannot overcome every harmful exposure.
Effective prevention also requires healthier food systems, safer working conditions, walkable neighborhoods, clean air and water, accessible green space, economic security, equitable healthcare, and policies that reduce exposure to harmful products. Public-health strategies are likely to be most successful when they improve both personal opportunities and the environments in which people live.
Conclusion
Diet, stress, sleep, activity, social conditions, substance use, and the built environment form an interconnected lifestyle exposome. These influences affect health through inflammation, hormonal regulation, metabolism, immune function, epigenetic processes, cellular aging, and the gut microbiome.
The exposome does not suggest that every disease can be prevented through personal choices. It instead shows that health emerges from continuing interactions among biology, behavior, society, and the environment. Studying these interactions across the life course can improve disease prevention, reveal unequal exposure burdens, and support policies that make healthy living more attainable for everyone.
Exposome Frameworks: Diet, Stress, and Lifestyle
Exposome and Mental Health Across the Lifespan
| Barzilay et al. | Neuropsychopharmacology | 2026
Explains how social conditions, psychological stress, behavior, and physical environments become biologically embedded through inflammation, metabolic disruption, and epigenetic change.
Understanding the Exposome
| National Institutes of Health | NIH Research Matters | 2026
Introduces the exposome as the combined influence of food, sleep, physical activity, chemicals, neighborhood conditions, and chronic stress throughout life.
A Large-Scale Look at the Exposome
| Harvard Medical School | Harvard Medical School News | 2026
Describes large-scale efforts to identify environmental, dietary, behavioral, and biological exposures associated with disease and healthy aging.
Exposome Involvement in the Development of Acne Vulgaris
| Multiple Authors | Dermatology Research | 2026
Reviews how diet, smoking, cosmetics, psychosocial stress, climate, and microbial communities collectively influence acne development.
Exposome Research Comes of Age
| Carrie Arnold Beans | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2025
Surveys advances in measuring the many chemical, dietary, social, and behavioral exposures that accumulate across a person’s lifetime.
The Exposome at Twenty: A Personal Account
| Christopher P. Wild | Exposome | 2025
Reflects on two decades of exposome research and its potential to explain preventable disease risks that cannot be attributed to genetics alone.
A Comprehensive Review of the Exposome’s Role in Healthy Aging and Longevity
| Aliberti et al. | Aging and Exposome Research | 2025
Examines how nutrition, physical activity, social relationships, natural environments, and stress reduction may support healthier aging.
The Impact of the Exposome on Alzheimer’s Disease
| Monaco et al. | Neurology Review | 2025
Connects nutrition, exercise, pollution, psychosocial stress, and other lifetime exposures with neuroinflammation and cognitive decline.
Offspring’s Exposome: Influence of Maternal Exposures
| Maccarini et al. | Narrative Review | 2025
Discusses how maternal nutrition, stress, lifestyle, and pollutant exposure may influence fetal programming and later health.
Exposome, Oxidative Stress and Inflammation
| Monti et al. | Exposome and Health Review | 2025
Describes oxidative stress and chronic inflammation as shared biological pathways connecting diet, smoking, environmental hazards, and quality of life with disease.
Type 2 Diabetes and the Urban Exposome
| Halonen et al. | Exposome | 2025
Reviews how air pollution, traffic noise, neighborhood walkability, green space, and food environments combine with lifestyle to influence diabetes risk.
Exploring the Exposome Spectrum
| Di Renzo et al. | Exposome Review | 2024
Examines interactions among diet, urban environments, lifestyle, metabolism, social conditions, and chemical exposure.
Questionnaire-Based Exposome-Wide Association Studies
| Lloyd et al. | Exposome | 2024
Demonstrates how questionnaires can capture diet, medication, occupation, stress, physical activity, and other lifestyle exposures for exposome-wide analyses.
Interactive Data Sharing for Questionnaire-Based Exposome Studies
| Lloyd et al. | Exposome | 2024
Presents a system for sharing and comparing findings about diet, stress, medications, lifestyle, occupation, and environmental exposures.
Food for Thought: Nourishing Cardiovascular Health Amidst Environmental Exposures
| Daher et al. | Cardiovascular Medicine Review | 2024
Explores how nutrition may either aggravate or reduce cardiovascular harm associated with pollution, smoking, alcohol, stress, and other exposures.
The Exposome and Nutritional Pharmacology and Toxicology
| Rushing et al. | Nutrients | 2023
Reviews how nutrients, food chemicals, supplements, medications, and contaminants interact within the body’s changing chemical environment.
Nutrition, Health, and Your Environment
| National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences | NIEHS | 2023
Explains why food is an environmental exposure and how nutrients, contaminants, preparation methods, and dietary patterns can influence health.
Using an Exposome-Wide Approach to Explore Urban Effects on Blood Pressure
| Multiple Authors | Environmental Science & Technology | 2022
Evaluates how multiple urban conditions and personal characteristics act together to shape blood pressure rather than operating as isolated risks.
Environmental Risk Factors of Type 2 Diabetes: An Exposome Approach
| Beulens et al. | Diabetologia | 2022
Organizes diabetes-related exposures into built, social, physical-chemical, lifestyle, and food environments.
The Influence of the Dietary Exposome on Oxidative Stress in Pregnancy
| Prins et al. | Nutrition Research Reviews | 2022
Reviews how overall diet and dietary interventions may alter oxidative stress generated by the combined exposures experienced during pregnancy.
The Exposome and Immune Health
| Morales et al. | Lifestyle Medicine Review | 2021
Discusses how diet, exercise, sleep, stress management, and environmental exposures influence immune resilience and vulnerability to infection.
Defining the Scope of Exposome Studies and Research Needs
| Zhang et al. | Environmental Science and Technology | 2021
Compares approaches for measuring external exposures and the internal biological changes produced by diet, behavior, stress, and chemicals.
Adult Skin Responses to Short-Term Environmental and Lifestyle Stress
| Passeron et al. | Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology | 2021
Shows that psychosocial stress, sleep deprivation, nutrition, climate, and pollution can interact to impair the skin barrier and immune response.
The Exposome and Health: Where Chemistry Meets Biology
| Vermeulen et al. | Science | 2020
Describes the exposome as the combined burden of synthetic chemicals, dietary constituents, psychosocial stressors, and physical agents.
An Evidence-Based Look at the Effects of Diet on Health
Reviews evidence connecting dietary patterns with energy, cognition, cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, weight, and emotional well-being.
Each Meal Matters in the Exposome
| Prescott et al. | Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism | 2017
Explains how the biological response to a single meal depends on microbiome composition, metabolic health, earlier exposures, and total lived experience.
Use of the Exposome in Epidemiology
| DeBord et al. | American Journal of Epidemiology | 2016
Reviews how epidemiologists can study the totality of occupational, environmental, dietary, social, and behavioral exposures across the life course.
Exposome in Inflammatory Bowel Disease
| Rogler and Vavricka | Digestive Diseases | 2015
Identifies diet, stress, medications, infections, smoking, food additives, water quality, and pollution as interacting influences on inflammatory bowel disease.
The Exposome: From Concept to Utility
| Wild | International Journal of Epidemiology | 2012
Develops a practical framework for connecting external exposures with internal biological markers and chronic disease.
Complementing the Genome with an Exposome
| Rappaport and Smith | Science | 2010
Argues that disease research must examine environmental chemicals, diet, inflammation, metabolism, and lifestyle alongside inherited genetic variation.
Cancer Epidemiology in the Coming Decade: The Exposome
| Christopher P. Wild | Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention | 2005
Introduces the exposome concept as the complete set of environmental exposures encountered from conception onward.
Diet and the Food Exposome
Healthy Diet
| World Health Organization | WHO | 2026
Summarizes how dietary variety, nutrient-rich foods, limited salt and sugar, and balanced energy intake can reduce chronic disease risks.
Dietary Guidelines for Americans
Provides evidence-based recommendations for dietary patterns that support health while limiting added sugar, sodium, saturated fat, and excess calories.
Ultra-Processed Food Exposure and Adverse Health Outcomes
Reviews evidence linking greater ultra-processed food consumption with cardiometabolic disease, mental-health problems, and premature death.
Ultra-Processed Foods and Human Health
| Monteiro et al. | Food and Agriculture Organization | 2019
Explains how industrial food processing changes the dietary exposome through additives, packaging chemicals, altered food structure, and increased energy density.
Diet–Microbiota Interactions and Personalized Nutrition
| Mills et al. | Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology | 2019
Reviews why genetic background, microbial composition, medication, and lifestyle cause individuals to respond differently to foods.
Western Diet and the Immune System
| Christ et al. | Nature Immunology | 2019
Describes how energy-dense, low-fiber diets may promote lasting inflammatory changes resembling innate immune memory.
Food Additives and the Intestinal Microbiota
| Zinöcker and Lindseth | Nutrients | 2018
Examines how emulsifiers and other food additives may alter gut microbes, intestinal barriers, inflammation, and metabolic health.
Dietary Fiber and the Gut Microbiota
| Makki et al. | Cell Host & Microbe | 2018
Reviews how fiber supports microbial diversity and production of metabolites involved in intestinal, immune, and metabolic health.
Dietary Fiber–Induced Improvement in Glucose Control
| Zhao et al. | Science | 2018
Finds that targeted dietary fiber can support beneficial gut bacteria and improve metabolic measurements in people with type 2 diabetes.
Mediterranean Diet and the Gut Microbiome
| De Filippis et al. | Gut | 2016
Associates stronger adherence to a Mediterranean diet with microbial patterns and metabolites considered favorable for health.
Dietary Emulsifiers Impact the Mouse Gut Microbiota
| Chassaing et al. | Nature | 2015
Reports experimental evidence that common emulsifiers can change gut microbial communities and promote inflammation and metabolic abnormalities in mice.
Personalized Nutrition by Prediction of Glycemic Responses
Shows that people can have markedly different blood-glucose responses to identical foods because of microbiome, lifestyle, and metabolic differences.
Maternal Nutrition and Developmental Programming
| Langley-Evans | Proceedings of the Nutrition Society | 2015
Explains how nutrition during pregnancy can influence fetal development and create lasting effects on metabolism and disease susceptibility.
Diet Rapidly and Reproducibly Alters the Human Gut Microbiome
| David et al. | Nature | 2014
Finds that short-term changes between plant-based and animal-based diets rapidly transform microbial activity in the digestive system.
Artificial Sweeteners Induce Glucose Intolerance
Reports that some non-caloric sweeteners can change gut microbial communities and glucose regulation in susceptible individuals.
Dietary Inflammatory Index and Health
| Shivappa et al. | Public Health Nutrition | 2014
Presents a tool for estimating the inflammatory potential of an overall diet rather than assessing nutrients one at a time.
Gut Microbiota from Twins Discordant for Obesity Modulate Metabolism
| Ridaura et al. | Science | 2013
Demonstrates that diet and gut microbial communities interact in ways that can influence body composition and metabolic function.
Mediterranean Diet and Cardiovascular Prevention
| Estruch et al. | New England Journal of Medicine | 2013
Reports that a Mediterranean dietary pattern supplemented with olive oil or nuts reduced cardiovascular events among high-risk adults.
Food, Microbiota, and Cardiovascular Disease
| Tang et al. | New England Journal of Medicine | 2013
Shows how gut microbes can convert dietary nutrients into metabolites associated with cardiovascular risk.
The Gut Microbiome in Health and Disease
| Clemente et al. | Cell | 2012
Reviews how diet, medication, infection, geography, and lifestyle shape microbial ecosystems and their effects on immunity and metabolism.
Nutrition and the Epigenome
| Choi and Friso | Annual Review of Nutrition | 2010
Reviews how nutrients and dietary patterns may modify gene regulation without changing the underlying DNA sequence.
Stress and the Psychosocial Exposome
Stress and the Social Exposome
| Multiple Authors | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2023
Examines how discrimination, financial insecurity, neighborhood disadvantage, and other social stressors contribute to cumulative biological risk.
Discrimination and Health
| Williams et al. | Annual Review of Public Health | 2019
Reviews evidence that discrimination shapes health through chronic stress, constrained opportunities, neighborhood conditions, and unequal exposure to hazards.
Racism and Health: Evidence and Needed Research
| Paradies et al. | PLOS ONE | 2015
Synthesizes international evidence associating racism with poorer mental health, physical illness, harmful coping behaviors, and reduced access to resources.
Loneliness and Social Isolation as Mortality Risk Factors
| Holt-Lunstad et al. | Perspectives on Psychological Science | 2015
Reports that loneliness, isolation, and living alone are associated with increased risk of premature mortality.
Chronic Stress and Age-Related Disease
| Epel and Lithgow | Journals of Gerontology | 2014
Connects accumulated stress with cellular aging, metabolic dysfunction, inflammation, and age-related disease.
Chronic Stress, Glucocorticoid Receptor Resistance, and Inflammation
| Cohen et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2012
Shows how prolonged stress can weaken hormonal control of inflammation and increase vulnerability to inflammatory disease.
Biological Embedding of Childhood Adversity
| Hertzman and Boyce | Annual Review of Public Health | 2010
Describes how early social environments may influence brain development, stress regulation, immunity, and later health.
Social Relationships and Mortality Risk
| Holt-Lunstad et al. | PLOS Medicine | 2010
Finds that stronger social relationships are associated with improved survival, making social connection an important component of the exposome.
Stress and Disorders of the Stress System
| Chrousos | Nature Reviews Endocrinology | 2009
Reviews how persistent activation of stress-response systems can disturb metabolism, immunity, sleep, mood, and cardiovascular function.
Childhood Adversity and Adult Inflammation
| Danese et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2007
Finds that adverse childhood experiences can predict elevated inflammation decades later, illustrating long-term biological embedding.
Central Effects of Stress Hormones
| de Kloet et al. | Nature Reviews Neuroscience | 2005
Explains how stress hormones affect memory, emotion, behavior, and brain adaptation, with effects depending on timing and duration.
Psychological Stress and the Human Immune System
| Segerstrom and Miller | Psychological Bulletin | 2004
Meta-analyzes decades of research showing that chronic stress is generally associated with suppressed or dysregulated immune function.
Accelerated Telomere Shortening in Response to Life Stress
| Epel et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2004
Associates prolonged caregiving stress with shorter telomeres and biological indicators of oxidative stress and cellular aging.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Health
| Grossman et al. | Journal of Psychosomatic Research | 2004
Reviews evidence that mindfulness-based programs can reduce perceived stress and improve selected physical and psychological outcomes.
Protective and Damaging Effects of Stress Mediators
| McEwen | New England Journal of Medicine | 1998
Introduces allostatic load as the accumulated physiological cost of repeatedly adapting to psychological and environmental stress.
Socioeconomic Status and Health
| Adler et al. | American Psychologist | 1994
Shows that health often follows a socioeconomic gradient shaped by material conditions, stress, behavior, education, and access to care.
Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, and the Built Environment
Fourteen Pathways Between Urban Transportation and Health
| Glazener et al. | Journal of Transport & Health | 2021
Maps the ways transportation influences activity, pollution, noise, injury, stress, social contact, and access to essential services.
Nature Exposure and Health
| Jimenez et al. | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health | 2021
Reviews associations between contact with nature and improved mental health, cognition, physical activity, blood pressure, sleep, and mortality.
WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour
| World Health Organization | WHO | 2020
Summarizes evidence that regular movement and reduced sedentary time protect cardiovascular, metabolic, musculoskeletal, and mental health.
Green Space and Health
| Twohig-Bennett and Jones | Environmental Research | 2018
Meta-analyzes evidence connecting greater green-space exposure with several favorable physical and mental health outcomes.
Physical Activity and Risk of Major Noncommunicable Diseases
Quantifies relationships between physical activity and reduced risks of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, breast cancer, and colon cancer.
Urban Design, Transport, and Health
| Giles-Corti et al. | The Lancet | 2016
Explains how compact neighborhoods, public transportation, walking infrastructure, green space, and reduced traffic can improve population health.
Residential Greenness and Mortality
| James et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2016
Associates greater vegetation around the home with lower mortality, potentially through activity, social engagement, reduced pollution, and lower stress.
Sedentary Time and Disease Incidence
| Biswas et al. | Annals of Internal Medicine | 2015
Associates prolonged sedentary behavior with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and mortality, partly independently of exercise.
Exercise as Medicine
| Pedersen and Saltin | Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports | 2015
Reviews evidence supporting exercise as part of the prevention or treatment of numerous chronic physical and mental conditions.
Exercise Alters Gut Microbiota Composition
Associates physical fitness and dietary patterns with differences in gut microbial diversity among professional athletes and comparison groups.
Exercise and the Regulation of Inflammation
| Gleeson et al. | Nature Reviews Immunology | 2011
Explains how habitual physical activity can reduce chronic low-grade inflammation through metabolic and immune pathways.
Built Environment and Physical Activity
| Heath et al. | Journal of Physical Activity and Health | 2006
Reviews how sidewalks, land use, transportation, safety, and access to recreation influence everyday movement.
Sleep, Circadian Rhythm, and Recovery
Sleep Duration and Chronic Disease
| Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | CDC | 2024
Explains how insufficient sleep is associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, depression, impaired attention, and injury.
Circadian Disruption and Human Health
| Roenneberg and Merrow | Current Biology | 2016
Explains how misalignment between biological time and work or social schedules can affect metabolism, mood, sleep, and disease risk.
Meal Timing and Circadian Biology
| Longo and Panda | Cell Metabolism | 2016
Reviews how the timing of eating interacts with biological clocks, fasting intervals, metabolism, and chronic disease.
Circadian Alignment and Cardiometabolic Health
| Qian and Scheer | Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism | 2016
Describes how shift work, nighttime eating, light exposure, and irregular sleep can disrupt glucose and cardiovascular regulation.
Night Shift Work and Chronic Disease
| Kecklund and Axelsson | BMJ | 2016
Reviews associations between shift work, sleep loss, circadian disruption, accidents, metabolic disease, and cardiovascular risk.
Sleep and the Metabolic Syndrome
| Xi et al. | Sleep Medicine Reviews | 2014
Reviews evidence that disrupted sleep duration and quality are associated with metabolic syndrome and its components.
Sleep Duration and All-Cause Mortality
| Cappuccio et al. | Sleep | 2010
Finds that both very short and very long reported sleep durations are associated with higher mortality risk.
Sleep Duration and Type 2 Diabetes
| Cappuccio et al. | Diabetes Care | 2010
Meta-analyzes evidence associating habitual short or long sleep with increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Sleep Curtailment and Weight Gain
| Knutson et al. | Sleep | 2007
Reviews pathways linking insufficient sleep with appetite hormones, food choices, reduced activity, insulin resistance, and obesity.
Sleep Deprivation and Endocrine Function
| Spiegel et al. | The Lancet | 1999
Demonstrates that sleep restriction can impair glucose regulation and alter hormonal and nervous-system activity.
Smoking, Alcohol, and Other Lifestyle Exposures
Tobacco Smoking and Disease
| World Health Organization | WHO | 2025
Summarizes the extensive disease burden caused by smoking and secondhand smoke, including cancer and cardiovascular and respiratory illness.
Alcohol and Health
| World Health Organization | WHO | 2024
Describes alcohol as a toxic, psychoactive exposure associated with injuries, dependence, cancer, liver disease, and cardiovascular harm.
Healthy Lifestyle and Disease-Free Life Expectancy
Finds that several favorable lifestyle behaviors are associated with more years lived without diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
Lifestyle Factors and Alzheimer’s Disease Risk
| Dhana et al. | Neurology | 2020
Associates combinations of physical activity, healthy diet, cognitive engagement, limited alcohol, and not smoking with lower Alzheimer’s risk.
Alcohol Use and Global Disease Burden
| GBD 2016 Alcohol Collaborators | The Lancet | 2018
Estimates alcohol-related disease and injury worldwide and concludes that health risks rise as consumption increases.
Combined Healthy Lifestyle Factors and Mortality
| Li et al. | Circulation | 2018
Associates not smoking, healthy weight, regular activity, moderate or no alcohol, and a high-quality diet with longer life expectancy.
Smoking and the Human Epigenome
| Joehanes et al. | Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics | 2016
Identifies widespread DNA-methylation differences associated with smoking, some of which may persist after cessation.
Health Consequences of Smoking
| U.S. Surgeon General | U.S. Department of Health and Human Services | 2014
Reviews how smoking damages nearly every organ and interacts with other environmental and biological risks.
Smoking and the Gut Microbiome
| Biedermann et al. | PLOS ONE | 2013
Reports that smoking cessation is followed by measurable changes in gut microbial composition.
Life-Course and Integrated Exposome Research
The Exposome Collaborative Background
| Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health | Johns Hopkins University | 2024
Defines the exposome as the cumulative imprint of environmental, dietary, behavioral, social, psychological, and internally generated influences.
Exposome and Exposomics
| National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health | CDC/NIOSH | 2022
Explains how environmental and occupational hazards interact with diet, lifestyle, genetics, physiology, and epigenetics throughout life.
Early-Life Exposome and Childhood Health
| Vrijheid et al. | International Journal of Epidemiology | 2020
Uses multiple environmental, social, dietary, and lifestyle measurements to examine how early-life exposures influence childhood health.
Early-Life Exposome and Childhood Obesity
| Vrijheid et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2020
Investigates how prenatal and childhood chemical exposures, diet, activity, sleep, and neighborhood conditions relate to obesity.
Neighborhood Disadvantage and Epigenetic Aging
| Lawrence et al. | American Journal of Epidemiology | 2020
Examines whether chronic exposure to disadvantaged neighborhood conditions is reflected in molecular measures of accelerated aging.
Early-Life Exposome and Lung Function
| Agier et al. | The Lancet Planetary Health | 2019
Examines numerous prenatal and childhood exposures simultaneously to identify influences on children’s respiratory health.
The Social Environment and Epigenetic Aging
| Fiorito et al. | Nature Communications | 2019
Associates socioeconomic and lifestyle factors with DNA-methylation patterns related to biological aging.
Maternal Diet and the Infant Microbiome
| Lundgren et al. | Microbiome | 2018
Associates maternal dietary patterns during pregnancy with differences in the gut microbial communities of infants.
The Pregnancy Exposome
| Robinson et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2018
Characterizes pregnancy as a sensitive period in which diet, stress, air pollution, chemicals, and social conditions may affect two generations.
Environmental Influences on the Human Microbiome
| Rothschild et al. | Nature | 2018
Finds that environmental and lifestyle factors can explain substantial variation in gut microbiome composition beyond genetic ancestry.
Environment Dominates Host Genetics in Shaping the Microbiota
| Rothschild et al. | Nature | 2018
Reports that shared environments, diet, medication, and lifestyle have strong effects on microbial communities and metabolic traits.
HELIX: The Human Early-Life Exposome Project
| Vrijheid et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2014
Describes a European project integrating pregnancy and childhood measurements of chemical, physical, social, and lifestyle exposures.
The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease
| Gluckman et al. | New England Journal of Medicine | 2008
Explains how nutrition, stress, hormones, and environmental conditions during early development can influence health throughout life.
Prenatal Stress and Child Development
| Talge et al. | Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry | 2007
Reviews evidence that maternal stress and anxiety during pregnancy may affect fetal development and later emotional and behavioral outcomes.
Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult Health
| Felitti et al. | American Journal of Preventive Medicine | 1998
Shows a graded relationship between childhood adversity and later behavioral, mental, and physical health problems.
Cumulative Biological Risk and Allostatic Load
| Seeman et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 1997
Demonstrates how measurements across cardiovascular, metabolic, hormonal, and immune systems can represent accumulated physiological strain.
Integrated Exposome and Lifestyle Research
Exposome-Wide Patterns Predict Brain Health in Aging
| Mahdipour et al. | Nature Communications | 2026
Uses hundreds of biomedical, lifestyle, nutritional, environmental, and social variables to predict differences in gray-matter health among older adults.
Integrating the Environmental and Genetic Architectures of Aging and Mortality
| Argentieri et al. | Nature Medicine | 2025
Finds that smoking, physical activity, socioeconomic conditions, living arrangements, and other modifiable exposures explain substantial variation in aging and premature mortality.
The Promise and Challenges of Exposomics in Child Health
| Gheisary et al. | Pediatric Research | 2025
Reviews the difficulty of measuring children’s nutrition, chemical exposures, stress, activity, and changing environments across sensitive developmental periods.
Longitudinal Associations of an Exposome Score with Metabolic Health
| Healy et al. | Communications Biology | 2024
Combines diet quality, physical activity, sleep, pollution, and socioeconomic status into a childhood exposome score associated with later metabolic changes.
Exposome-Wide Ranking of Environmental Factors Associated with Type 2 Diabetes
| Ding et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2024
Ranks chemical, nutritional, behavioral, and social exposures associated with diabetes while illustrating the value of studying many modifiable factors together.
Social and Environmental Stressors of Cardiometabolic Health
| Polcrova et al. | Scientific Reports | 2024
Examines how social disadvantage, environmental conditions, psychosocial stress, and health behaviors combine to influence cardiometabolic risk.
Exposome-Wide Ranking of Modifiable Cardiometabolic Risk Factors
| Poveda et al. | Scientific Reports | 2022
Evaluates approximately 300 lifestyle exposures, including food, beverages, exercise, sleep, smoking, alcohol, and psychosocial conditions.
An Exposome-Wide Association Study of Body Mass Index in Adolescents
| Haddad et al. | Scientific Reports | 2022
Studies dietary, physical-activity, clinical, socioeconomic, and chemical exposures associated with adolescent body mass index.
Metabolomic and Microbiome Responses to Environmental Exposure
| Deng et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2022
Demonstrates how an environmental chemical can interact with dietary fiber, gut microorganisms, and liver metabolism.
The External Exposome and Allergic Disease
| Cecchi et al. | Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology | 2021
Reviews how diet, microbial contact, pollution, tobacco, climate, occupations, and lifestyle collectively affect allergic disease.
Diet Quality and Metabolic Health
Healthy Eating Index and Mortality
| Shan et al. | JAMA Internal Medicine | 2023
Associates several high-quality eating patterns with lower risks of cardiovascular, cancer, respiratory, and neurodegenerative mortality.
Dietary Patterns and All-Cause Mortality
| Shan et al. | JAMA Internal Medicine | 2023
Shows that multiple culturally adaptable eating patterns emphasizing nutritious plant foods are associated with longer survival.
Mediterranean Diet and Female Cardiovascular Risk
Finds that greater adherence to a Mediterranean dietary pattern is associated with lower cardiovascular disease and mortality among women.
Ultra-Processed Food and Colorectal Cancer
Reports an association between greater consumption of ultra-processed foods and colorectal cancer risk, particularly among men.
Ultra-Processed Food Consumption and Dementia
| Gonçalves et al. | Neurology | 2022
Associates greater intake of ultra-processed food with faster decline in executive and overall cognitive performance.
Food Processing and Cardiovascular Disease
Finds that higher consumption of ultra-processed food is associated with increased incidence of cardiovascular disease.
Ultra-Processed Foods and Mortality
| Rico-Campà et al. | BMJ | 2019
Associates frequent ultra-processed food consumption with greater risk of premature death in a prospective adult cohort.
Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain
| Hall et al. | Cell Metabolism | 2019
In a controlled trial, participants ate more calories and gained weight on an ultra-processed diet despite meals being matched for several nutrients.
Carbohydrate Quality and Human Health
| Reynolds et al. | The Lancet | 2019
Links higher fiber and whole-grain consumption with lower rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, colorectal cancer, and mortality.
Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease
| Sacks et al. | Circulation | 2017
Concludes that replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats can improve blood lipids and reduce cardiovascular risk.
Plant-Based, Mediterranean, and Traditional Diets
Healthy Plant-Based Diet and Type 2 Diabetes
| Wang et al. | Diabetologia | 2022
Associates healthy plant-based eating patterns and their metabolic signatures with reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Mediterranean Diet and Cognitive Health
| Coelho-Júnior et al. | Advances in Nutrition | 2021
Reviews evidence connecting Mediterranean-style eating with slower cognitive decline and reduced dementia risk.
Mediterranean Diet, the Microbiome, and Healthy Aging
Finds that a Mediterranean diet alters gut microbial patterns associated with reduced frailty and inflammation in older adults.
Mediterranean Diet and Depression Prevention
| Sánchez-Villegas et al. | PLOS ONE | 2019
Tests whether a Mediterranean dietary intervention can contribute to the prevention of recurrent depression.
Dietary Improvement for Young Adults with Depression
| Francis et al. | PLOS ONE | 2019
Finds that a brief Mediterranean-style dietary intervention reduced symptoms among young adults reporting depression.
Indigenous Food Systems and Health
| Isaac et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2018
Presents Indigenous perspectives connecting traditional food, culture, environmental stewardship, community relationships, and health.
Plant-Based Diet Quality and Cardiovascular Disease
| Satija et al. | Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 2017
Distinguishes nutritious plant-based diets from plant diets high in refined grains and sugar, finding substantially different cardiovascular associations.
Healthful Plant-Based Diets and Coronary Heart Disease
| Satija et al. | Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 2017
Reports lower coronary risk for diets emphasizing whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and legumes.
The SMILES Trial of Dietary Improvement for Depression
| Jacka et al. | BMC Medicine | 2017
Reports improved depressive symptoms following a structured dietary-support intervention emphasizing nutritious whole foods.
Traditional Dietary Patterns and Chronic Disease
| Hu | Current Opinion in Lipidology | 2011
Reviews how whole dietary patterns may provide more useful information about chronic disease than individual nutrients.
Food Environments, Access, and Inequality
Food Insecurity and Cardiometabolic Health
| Palakshappa et al. | Current Atherosclerosis Reports | 2020
Reviews how unstable access to nutritious food can produce stress, disrupted eating, medication tradeoffs, and increased cardiometabolic risk.
Food Insecurity and Mental Health
| Pourmotabbed et al. | Public Health Nutrition | 2020
Meta-analyzes associations between food insecurity and depression, anxiety, sleep problems, and psychological distress.
Marketing of Unhealthy Foods to Children
| Smith et al. | Obesity Reviews | 2019
Reviews evidence that repeated exposure to food advertising influences children’s preferences, requests, consumption, and weight-related behavior.
Food Deserts and Cardiovascular Risk
| Kelli et al. | Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes | 2017
Links limited neighborhood access to healthy foods with socioeconomic disadvantage and adverse cardiovascular risk profiles.
Healthy Food Subsidies and Unhealthy Food Taxes
| Afshin et al. | PLOS ONE | 2017
Evaluates how changes in food prices can influence dietary choices and potentially reduce diet-related disease.
Food Insecurity and Health Outcomes
| Gundersen and Ziliak | Health Affairs | 2015
Summarizes evidence linking food insecurity with poor physical health, mental distress, developmental problems, and greater healthcare use.
Neighborhood Food Environments and Obesity
| Cobb et al. | Obesity | 2015
Reviews how supermarkets, convenience stores, restaurants, prices, transportation, and neighborhood disadvantage may affect eating and weight.
Socioeconomic Inequalities in Diet Quality
| Darmon and Drewnowski | Nutrition Reviews | 2015
Explains how income, education, prices, neighborhood access, time, and social conditions shape dietary quality.
Food Insecurity as a Stressful Life Experience
| Laraia | Advances in Nutrition | 2013
Explains how food insecurity combines dietary deprivation with uncertainty, anxiety, social disadvantage, and chronic physiological stress.
Stress and Eating Behaviors
| Adam and Epel | Physiology & Behavior | 2007
Describes how stress hormones and reward pathways can increase preference for energy-dense foods and promote abdominal fat accumulation.
Stress, Eating, and the Brain
Chronic Stress and Obesity
| Tomiyama | Annual Review of Psychology | 2019
Explains how stress influences appetite, food choice, fat storage, sleep, exercise, and weight-related feedback cycles.
Dietary Patterns and Depression
| Lassale et al. | Molecular Psychiatry | 2019
Meta-analyzes evidence that healthier dietary patterns are associated with reduced risk of depressive outcomes.
The Gut-Brain Axis: Interactions Between Microbes, Diet, and Stress
| Cryan et al. | Physiological Reviews | 2019
Reviews communication among gut microbes, the nervous system, immunity, hormones, diet, stress, and behavior.
Stress and Obesity: The Role of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis
| van der Valk et al. | Obesity Reviews | 2018
Reviews how chronic stress, cortisol, emotional eating, sleep disruption, and reduced activity can contribute to obesity.
Diet and Depression: A Systematic Review
| Molendijk et al. | Journal of Affective Disorders | 2018
Finds consistent associations between overall diet quality and depression while emphasizing limitations of observational research.
Metabolic Responses to High-Fat Meals Following Stress
| Kiecolt-Glaser et al. | Biological Psychiatry | 2015
Finds that recent stressors can slow post-meal metabolism and worsen insulin and fat-related responses.
Stress, Food, and Inflammation
| Kiecolt-Glaser | Psychoneuroendocrinology | 2010
Reviews how psychological stress and unhealthy meals may interact to increase inflammation and metabolic dysfunction.
Emotional Eating and Perceived Stress
| Konttinen et al. | Appetite | 2010
Examines emotional eating as a behavioral pathway connecting stress and depressive symptoms with higher body weight.
Stress and Food Choice
| Torres and Nowson | Nutrition | 2007
Reviews evidence that stress can change meal patterns, appetite, and preferences for foods high in sugar and fat.
Comfort Food and Stress Reduction
| Dallman et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2003
Proposes that stress can encourage consumption of high-fat, high-sugar foods that temporarily modify brain stress pathways.
Microbiome, Diet, and Stress Biology
Fermented Foods, Microbial Diversity, and Inflammation
Finds that a fermented-food diet increased microbial diversity and reduced several inflammatory markers in healthy adults.
Stress and the Gut Microbiota
| Madison and Kiecolt-Glaser | Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences | 2019
Reviews two-way relationships in which stress changes gut microbes while microbial metabolites may influence emotional and immune responses.
Dietary Diversity and Microbial Stability
| Johnson et al. | Nature Medicine | 2019
Shows that daily food choices can produce individualized changes in gut microbial composition and function.
Exercise Modifies the Gut Microbiota
| Allen et al. | Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise | 2018
Finds that exercise produces changes in gut microbes and microbial metabolites that partly depend on body composition.
The Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis
| Dinan and Cryan | Gastroenterology Clinics of North America | 2017
Explains how diet, antibiotics, infection, and psychological stress can alter microbial signaling involved in mood and cognition.
Early-Life Stress and the Microbiome-Gut-Brain Axis
| O’Mahony et al. | Biological Psychiatry | 2017
Reviews how prenatal and childhood stress may interact with microbial development and influence later stress regulation.
Social Stress Alters the Gut Microbiota
| Bharwani et al. | Scientific Reports | 2016
Reports that chronic social stress altered microbial communities, immune activity, and behavior in an experimental model.
Microbiome Diversity and Lifestyle
| Sonnenburg et al. | Nature | 2016
Demonstrates that low-fiber diets can progressively reduce microbial diversity across generations in an experimental model.
Microbiota-Accessible Carbohydrates
| Sonnenburg and Sonnenburg | Cell Metabolism | 2014
Describes how dietary carbohydrates available to gut microbes influence community structure, metabolite production, and immune function.
Long-Term Diet and Gut Microbial Enterotypes
Associates long-term dietary patterns with distinct gut microbial communities while showing that short-term dietary changes act rapidly.
Sleep, Stress, and Circadian Lifestyle
Sleep Regularity and Mortality
| Windred et al. | Sleep | 2024
Finds that maintaining consistent sleep and wake schedules may predict survival more strongly than sleep duration alone.
Late Eating and Obesity Risk
| Vujović et al. | Cell Metabolism | 2022
Finds that eating later can increase hunger, reduce energy expenditure, and alter molecular pathways in fat tissue.
Daytime Eating Prevents Mood Vulnerability During Night Work
| Chellappa et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2022
Reports that restricting meals to daytime reduced mood-related effects of simulated night-shift work.
Irregular Sleep and Cardiovascular Disease
| Huang et al. | Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 2020
Associates inconsistent sleep duration and timing with a greater incidence of cardiovascular disease.
Sleep Variability and Metabolic Abnormalities
| Huang et al. | Diabetes Care | 2019
Associates irregular sleep schedules with obesity, abnormal cholesterol, hypertension, and impaired glucose regulation.
Sleep Loss and Food Purchasing
| Chapman et al. | Obesity | 2013
Reports that sleep-deprived participants purchased more calories and more food than they did after a normal night’s sleep.
Sleep Deprivation and Brain Responses to Food
| Greer et al. | Nature Communications | 2013
Shows that inadequate sleep alters activity in brain regions involved in appetite, decision-making, and food reward.
Social Jetlag, Obesity, and Metabolic Dysfunction
| Roenneberg et al. | Current Biology | 2012
Links mismatch between biological and social time with higher body weight and adverse metabolic outcomes.
Insufficient Sleep Undermines Dietary Weight Loss
| Nedeltcheva et al. | Annals of Internal Medicine | 2010
Shows that sleep restriction changes the proportion of body fat and lean tissue lost during a calorie-restricted diet.
Sleep Restriction Increases Hunger
| Spiegel et al. | Annals of Internal Medicine | 2004
Finds that short sleep alters leptin, ghrelin, hunger, and appetite, particularly for calorie-dense foods.
Physical Activity, Nature, and Stress Reduction
Dose-Response Association Between Activity and Mortality
Uses device-measured activity to show that more movement and less sedentary time are associated with lower mortality.
Urban Nature and Psychological Well-Being
| White et al. | Scientific Reports | 2019
Associates spending at least two hours per week in nature with better self-reported health and well-being.
Physical Activity and Incident Depression
| Schuch et al. | American Journal of Psychiatry | 2018
Finds that people with higher physical-activity levels have a reduced future risk of depression across age groups and geographic regions.
Physical Activity and Anxiety
| Stubbs et al. | Depression and Anxiety | 2017
Meta-analyzes evidence that greater physical activity is associated with a lower risk of developing anxiety.
Nature Experience Reduces Rumination
| Bratman et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2015
Reports that walking in a natural environment reduced rumination and activity in a brain region associated with mental-health risk.
Exercise and Stress Reactivity
| Childs and de Wit | Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise | 2014
Reports that regular exercisers may show greater emotional resilience following an acute psychosocial stressor.
Exercise for Depression
| Cooney et al. | Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews | 2013
Reviews trials indicating that exercise can reduce depressive symptoms, although study quality and long-term effects vary.
Physical Activity Reduces Genetic Predisposition to Obesity
| Li et al. | PLOS Medicine | 2010
Finds that an active lifestyle can weaken the association between obesity-related genetic variants and body weight.
Green Exercise and Mental Health
| Barton and Pretty | Environmental Science & Technology | 2010
Finds that physical activity performed in natural settings is associated with improvements in mood and self-esteem.
Forest Bathing and Stress Physiology
| Park et al. | Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine | 2010
Finds that time in forest environments can reduce cortisol, pulse rate, blood pressure, and sympathetic nervous-system activity.
Social Connection, Work, and Daily Life
Social Isolation and Inflammation
| Smith et al. | Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews | 2020
Reviews evidence linking social isolation and loneliness with elevated inflammatory biomarkers.
Purpose in Life and Mortality
| Alimujiang et al. | JAMA Network Open | 2019
Associates a stronger sense of life purpose with lower mortality among adults over age 50.
Optimism and Healthy Aging
| Lee et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2019
Finds that greater optimism is associated with increased likelihood of living to an advanced age.
Burnout and Physical Health
| Salvagioni et al. | PLOS ONE | 2017
Reviews prospective evidence connecting occupational burnout with cardiovascular, metabolic, musculoskeletal, and other health outcomes.
Social Isolation and Cardiovascular Disease
| Valtorta et al. | Heart | 2016
Meta-analyzes evidence associating loneliness and social isolation with increased risks of coronary heart disease and stroke.
Long Working Hours and Cardiovascular Disease
| Kivimäki et al. | The Lancet | 2015
Finds that long working hours are associated with higher risks of stroke and, to a lesser extent, coronary heart disease.
Volunteering and Health
| Jenkinson et al. | BMC Public Health | 2013
Reviews associations between volunteering, social connection, mental well-being, physical health, and mortality.
Work Stress and Coronary Heart Disease
| Kivimäki et al. | The Lancet | 2012
Associates job strain with an increased risk of coronary heart disease across multiple European cohorts.
Job Insecurity and Health
| Ferrie et al. | Social Science & Medicine | 2002
Shows how anticipation of job loss can damage self-reported health even before unemployment occurs.
Caregiving Stress and Immune Function
| Kiecolt-Glaser et al. | Psychosomatic Medicine | 1991
Demonstrates that prolonged caregiving stress can weaken immune responses and delay biological recovery.
Modifiable Lifestyle Patterns and Prevention
Healthy Lifestyle and Life Expectancy
| Nyberg et al. | JAMA Internal Medicine | 2020
Associates favorable weight, smoking, activity, and alcohol patterns with more years lived without major chronic diseases.
Lifestyle and Genetic Risk of Dementia
| Lourida et al. | JAMA | 2019
Finds that a favorable lifestyle is associated with lower dementia risk even among people with high genetic susceptibility.
Lifestyle and Genetic Risk of Coronary Disease
| Khera et al. | New England Journal of Medicine | 2016
Shows that not smoking, avoiding obesity, exercising, and eating well are associated with lower coronary risk across genetic-risk categories.
Lifestyle and Sudden Cardiac Death in Women
Associates multiple healthy lifestyle factors with a substantially reduced risk of sudden cardiac death.
Four Lifestyle Factors and Chronic Disease
| Ford et al. | Archives of Internal Medicine | 2009
Associates never smoking, healthy weight, physical activity, and nutritious eating with sharply reduced chronic disease risk.
Healthy Lifestyle and Stroke
| Chiuve et al. | Circulation | 2008
Finds that combinations of healthy diet, activity, weight, smoking avoidance, and limited alcohol are associated with lower stroke risk.
Lifestyle Factors and Coronary Events in Men
| Chiuve et al. | Circulation | 2006
Estimates that a large proportion of coronary events could be prevented through combined low-risk lifestyle practices.
INTERHEART: Modifiable Risks for Myocardial Infarction
| Yusuf et al. | The Lancet | 2004
Identifies smoking, diet, activity, abdominal obesity, alcohol, blood pressure, lipids, diabetes, and psychosocial stress as major modifiable heart-attack risks.
Lifestyle Intervention for Type 2 Diabetes Prevention
| Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group | New England Journal of Medicine | 2002
Demonstrates that diet, physical activity, and modest weight loss can greatly reduce diabetes incidence among high-risk adults.
Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study
| Tuomilehto et al. | New England Journal of Medicine | 2001
Finds that individualized dietary and exercise guidance reduces progression from impaired glucose tolerance to diabetes.
