Lifestyle behaviour patterns in the prevention of type 2 diabetes mellitus: the Fukushima Health Database 2015-2020

Lifestyle behaviours associated with the incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) need further clarification using health insurance data.

This is a cohort study.

In 2015, 193,246 participants aged 40-74 years attended the specific health checkups and were observed up to 2020 in Fukushima, Japan. Using the principal component analysis, we identified two patterns from ten lifestyle behaviour questions, namely, the "diet-smoking" pattern (including smoking, alcohol drinking, skipping breakfast, eating fast, late dinner, and snacking) and the "physical activity-sleep" pattern (including physical exercise, walking equivalent activity, walking fast, and sufficient sleep). Then, individual pattern scores were calculated; the higher the scores, the healthier the behaviours.

The accumulative incidence rate of T2DM was 630.5 in men and 391.9 in women per 100,000 person-years in an average of 4 years of follow-up. Adjusted for the demographic and cardiometabolic factors at the baseline, the hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) of the highest versus lowest quartile scores of the "diet-smoking" pattern for T2DM risk was 0.82 (0.72, 0.92; P for trend = 0.002) in men and 0.87 (0.76, 1·00; P for trend = 0.034) in women; that of the "physical activity-sleep" pattern was 0.92 (0.82, 1·04; P for trend = 0.0996) in men and 0.92 (0.80, 1·06; P for trend = 0.372) in women. The "physical activity-sleep" pattern showed a significant inverse association in non-overweight men.

Lifestyle behaviour associated with a healthy diet and lack of smoking may significantly lower the risk of T2DM in middle-aged Japanese adults.