Chest
Clinical InvestigationsPulmonary FunctionPulmonary Function Is a Long-term Predictor of Mortality in the General Population: 29-Year Follow-up of the Buffalo Health Study
Section snippets
Study Population
The Buffalo BP/Erie County Air Pollution-Pulmonary Function Study enrolled 2,273 men and women aged 15 to 96 years from 1960 to1961. This epidemiologic study engaged a randomly selected populationsample of the city of Buffalo, NY, and was designed initially toinvestigate factors related to hypertension and pulmonary function. Thedetails of the study design, participation, follow-up, and ascertainment of vital status have been describedelsewhere.131415 In brief, a random sample of
Results
There was no statistically significant difference in baselinevariables between the 254 participants without pulmonary functionrecords and the remaining 1,494 participants with pulmonary functiondata. Participants without pulmonary function data were less likely tobe women than men (49.8% vs 55.8%, respectively), were slightly older(45.7 vs 44.2 years, respectively), and had higher SBP (141.4 vs 139.0mm Hg, respectively) but showed similar height, education, and smokinghabits.
Baseline
Discussion
The findings of this cohort study suggest that, FEV1 is a risk factor for all-cause and for IHDmortality for a follow-up period of 29 years after adjustment for otherrisk factors. The exclusion of participants who die early duringfollow-up does not seem to alter the results. Only after the exclusionof participants who died within 25 years of follow-up does, FEV1 not predict the all-cause mortality rate inmen, although power was limited after the exclusion of this group ofparticipants, and the
Conclusion
In summary, our results extend those from previous studiesindicating that FEV1% pred is a statisticallysignificant predictor for both all-cause and IHD mortality in bothgenders in follow-up periods of 29 years. As has been pointed out by, Persson et al,11 there is an urgency to reach a betterunderstanding of the relationship of impaired pulmonary function todisease in order to undertake preventive measures. From severalstudies, we know that smoking cessation does not seem to be the onlysolution
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This research was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (grant No. HL5487402) and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft(grant No. SCHU 1056–1/1).