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Abstract
Purpose The cohort was set up to study the impact of lifestyle factors in early adulthood on disease outcomes, with a focus on assessing the influence of body composition and physical performance in early adulthood on subsequent cancer risk.
Participants Men born in 1958 who performed their military service between the ages of 17 and 30 years were included in this study (n=31 158). They were eligible for military service if they were healthy or had only minor health problems diagnosed at the beginning of their service. Men with chronic illnesses requiring regular medication or treatment were not eligible for service. Comprehensive health data including diagnosed illnesses, anthropometric measures and health behaviour were collected at the beginning and at the end of military service, including data from medical check-ups.
Findings to date During the follow-up, 1124 new cancer cases were diagnosed between baseline (ie, end of the military service for each individual) and end of the year 2014. In the end of the follow-up, 91% of the study participants were still alive. Overweight (body mass index (BMI) ≥25 kg/m2) and obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) were associated with an overall increased risk of cancer. A good or excellent physical condition significantly reduced cancer risk.
Future plans The dataset offers the possibility of linkage with other databases, such as the Finnish Cancer Registry (eg, primary site of the tumour, morphology, time of detection, spreading and primary treatment), vital statistics (date of emigration or deaths), censuses (socioeconomic indicators), hospital discharge data (comorbidity) and population surveys (life habits).
- population-based
- cohort
- men
- finland
- risk factors
- cancer
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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Footnotes
Contributors JS, EP, MA and IS were responsible for the planning, data collection, data analysis and preparing of the manuscript. All authors have contributed equally. The project has been managed by JS.
Funding This work was supported by a grant of €50 000 from the Finnish Cancer Foundation.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Detail has been removed from this case description/these case descriptions to ensure anonymity. The editors and reviewers have seen the detailed information available and are satisfied that the information backs up the case the authors are making.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement The study data are not freely available due to confidentiality reasons, but the research team welcomes potential collaboration with other researchers. For further information, contact the author EP at the Finnish Cancer Registry (eero.pukkala@cancer.fi) or JS (jorma.sormunen@fimnet.fi).