After excluding, for example, exposures related to existing diseases, or that might simply reflect another underlying factor, the team were left with 85 environment exposures associated with the risk of premature death.
In a further analysis, the team found age and sex together explained about half of the variation in risk of premature death, while the 25 environmental exposures together explained an additional 17% of the variation.
The study has limitations, including that the results may differ in other countries, environmental exposures were only measured at one time point, the associations raised reflect cause and effect, and there could be environmental exposures that were not considered.
Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, Argentieri and colleagues at Oxford Population Health and other institutions report how they analysed whether 164 environmental exposures, from salt intake to living with a partner, were associated with the risk of premature death.
Experts say the work highlights the importance of the “exposome” – the host of environmental exposures we encounter in life, from our living conditions to whether we smoke – for health, including how we age and why we develop age-related chronic diseases.
