# EFFECT OF HEALTH HABITS ON SURVIVAL IN ADVENTISTS

> **NIH NIH R01** · LOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY · 1991 · $174,309

## Abstract

It is proposed to use a large existing data base describing 34,198
California Seventh-day Adventists to investigate the effects of health
habits on survival.  Forty-five percent of the subjects in this special
population are lacto-ovo vegetarian with many of those remaining having
habits typical of other Americans.  Forty-one percent of subjects became
members at a variety of ages during adult life, this usually being
accompanied by great changes in health habits.  Thus the population
provides the unique advantage of a wide variation in current health habits,
so increasing statistical power.  In additional there is a varying duration
of these dietary and other habits amongst similar aged subjects.  Thirteen
years of mortality follow-up will be available (1978-90), following
collection of baseline exposure data (1974-76).  The projected number of
deaths during this period is approximately 6,544.  The exposure data have
been carefully verified for the purpose of previous studies of cancer and
ischemic heart disease.  Its proposed use for aging and survival analyses
is thus extremely cost effective.

A major aim is to establish whether particular dietary habits, physical
inactivity, obesity levels or psychosocial attributes predict survival.
Lengthened survival in the population may result from an increased
lifespan, representing an effect on the aging process.  This is often also
accompanied by delayed expression of common chronic disease, hence not
affecting compression of mortality.  On the other hand we hypothesize that
other lifestyles will not affect the aging process but may delay common
chronic diseases, hence producing compression of mortality.  We will
compare the effects of certain health habits on survival between the two
sexes.  Similarly we will investigate with special interest
exposure-survival associations in the very old (> 80 years) and contrast
these with effects in younger persons.  Many causes of mortality have long
induction periods. We hypothesize that a longer duration of exposure is a
separate and important modifier of the effect of current habits but expect
that later age of first exposure will have less effect on survival.
Analyses will largely use product-limit non-parametric survival estimators
and the Cox proportional hazards model.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 3120762
- **Project number:** 1R01AG008961-01A2
- **Recipient organization:** LOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY
- **SAM.gov UEI:** SZAKFNU35ZX5
- **Principal Investigator:** GARY E. FRASER
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1991
- **Award amount:** $174,309
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 1991-09-15 → 1995-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/3120762

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 3120762, EFFECT OF HEALTH HABITS ON SURVIVAL IN ADVENTISTS (1R01AG008961-01A2). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/3120762. Licensed CC0.

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