Perceived health modifies the effect of biomedical risk factors in the prediction of acute myocardial infarction. An incident case-control study from northern Sweden.
OBJECTIVE
To assess the importance of biomedical risk factors, social factors and self-reported health in the prediction of the first event of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in an apparently healthy middle-aged population.


METHODS
An incident case-control study.


METHODS
The study was nested within the Västerbotten Intervention Program and the Northern Sweden MONICA cohorts.


METHODS
The study consists of 78 AMI cases with two randomly selected controls per case from the same study cohorts.


RESULTS
Significant odds ratios were found for history of diabetes, daily smoking, cholesterol, body-mass index, hypertension, lower education and perceived ill health. In multivariate logistic regression smoking, hypertension and cholesterol of > or =7.8 mmol L(-1) remained significant. An interaction was observed between number of biomedical risk factors and perceived health.


CONCLUSIONS
Smoking, hypertension and hypercholesterolaemia explain a major share of incident AMI events in a Swedish middle-aged population. The study further illustrates that perceived ill health negatively modifies the impact of these risk factors.
Weinehall
L
L
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Umeå University, Sweden. lars.weinehall@epiph.umu.se
Johnson
O
O
Jansson
J H
JH
Boman
K
K
Huhtasaari
F
F
Hallmans
G
G
Dahlen
G H
GH
Wall
S
S
D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012307:Risk Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology