title: Incident obesity and cardiovascular risk factors between young adulthood and middle age by religious involvement: the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Religious involvement has been associated with improved health outcomes but greater obesity in older adults. No longitudinal study of young adults has examined the prospective association of religious involvement with incident cardiovascular risk factors (RFs) and subclinical disease (subCVD).
  
  
  METHODS
  We included 2433 participants of the CARDIA study, aged 20 to 32 in 1987 when religiosity was assessed, who were followed for 18 years. Multivariable-adjusted regression models were fitted to assess prospective associations of frequency of religious participation at baseline with incidence of RFs and prevalence of subCVD after 18 years' follow up.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The high frequency of religious participation was associated with a significantly greater incidence of obesity in unadjusted models (RR 1.57, 95% CI 1.14-1.73) and demographic-adjusted models (RR 1.34, 95% CI 1.09-1.65) but not after additional adjustment for baseline RFs (RR 1.17, 95% CI .97-1.41). When religious participation was treated dichotomously, any religious participation, compared with none, was associated with significantly lower subCVD.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Frequent religious participants are more likely to become obese between young adulthood and middle age; this association is confounded by demographic and other factors. Nonetheless, young adults with frequent participation may represent an opportunity for obesity prevention.
authors.affiliation: Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL 60611, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Feinstein
authors.forename: Kiang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Hongyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ning
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fitchett
authors.forename: Donald M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Lloyd-Jones
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012067:Religion; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D012306:Risk; D012307:Risk Factors; D057566:Self Report; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology