Modifiable causes of premature death in middle-age in Western Europe: results from the EPIC cohort study

Life expectancy is increasing in Europe, yet a substantial proportion of adults still die prematurely before the age of 70 years. We sought to estimate the joint and relative contributions of tobacco smoking, hypertension, obesity, physical inactivity, alcohol and poor diet towards risk of premature death. We analysed data from 264,906 European adults from the EPIC prospective cohort study, aged between 40 and 70 years at the time of...