Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 17|pp 16999—17021

The association of healthy behaviors with cognitive health expectancy in Chinese older adults: a population-based cohort study

Chengbei Hou¹, Yinan Lin², Zachary Zimmer³, Xianghua Fang¹

¹Center for Evidence-Based Medicine, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
²Center for Applied Statistics and School of Statistics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
³Department of Family Studies and Gerontology, Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Received: February 5, 2020Accepted: June 22, 2020Published: September 9, 2020

Copyright: © 2020 Hou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Objective: To examine how lifestyles and leisure activities are associated with cognitive health expectancy among older adults.

Results: For young-old (aged 65), an absolute increase in life years without cognitive impairment was found among those with a healthy diet, engaging in mental activities and in social activities. For old-old (aged 85), an absolute increase was found for men engaging in physical activities besides those. Compared with counterparts in a high risk group, the young-old in a medium-low risk group had a smaller proportion of years without cognitive impairment. Old-old in a low risk group had a greater proportion.

Conclusion: Extra years of life gained by a healthy dietary pattern, mental activities, and social activities are free of cognitive impairment for both sexes across ages. The beneficial impact of individual and combined modifiable factors on cognitive health is most prominent in old-old.

Methods: Data come from The Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey, a population-based cohort study of 27,193 participants aged 65+ conducted between 2002 and 2014. Smoking status, alcohol consumption, dietary pattern, marital status, physical, mental, social, and productive activities were assessed at baseline. Cognitive status was measured using the Chinese version of the MMSE.