Age- and sex-specific attributable impact of modifiable risk factors on atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in Korea: a nationwide population-based cohort study.
retrospective_cohort · Level III
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 42004582.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1016/j.lanwpc.2026.101844 and PMC identifier 13085072.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
While modifiable risk factors are central to the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), their relative contributions differ by age, sex, region, and period. However, contemporary evidence on these patterns in the large-scale Korean population remains scarce. We aimed to quantify the age- and sex-specific burden of major modifiable risk factors for ASCVD in a large nationwide cohort. This retrospective cohort study included 6,249,852 Korean adults without prior ASCVD who underwent the National Health Screening between 2009 and 2010. The primary outcome was incident ASCVD, defined as cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or ischemic stroke. Participants were followed for these outcomes through linkage to the Korean National Health Insurance Service claims database and Statistics Korea mortality data. Population-attributable fractions (PAFs) for risk factors-body mass index, systolic blood pressure (SBP), smoking, diabetes, and non-HDL-cholesterol-were estimated from multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models and stratified by age and sex. In this cohort (mean age 46.9 ± 13.7 years; 52.2% men), 279,093 ASCVD events occurred (incidence rate, 3.58/1000 person-years) during a median follow-up of 13.0 years. The five risk factors collectively explained 46.2% of the ASCVD burden, with the greatest contribution from SBP, followed by smoking, non-HDL-cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity. PAFs were higher in men (52.8%) than women (30.4%), and highest in men aged <50 years (71.5%), where SBP (48.6%) and smoking (29.4%) predominated. In women, SBP remained the leading contributor with less variation by age, whereas diabetes and atherogenic lipids contributed more prominently at older ages. These findings reveal distinct age- and sex-specific patterns in the burden of modifiable risk factors in contemporary Koreans. Tailored prevention strategies that reflect national epidemiological profiles and demographic risk patterns are needed to effectively reduce the ASCVD burden. None.