Effect of overall lifestyle on the all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease death in dyslipidemia patients with or without lipid-lowering therapy: a cohort study

BACKGROUND: Lifestyle adjustment has been reported as one of the interventions for dyslipidemia. This study aimed to explore the effect of overall lifestyle on the risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease (CVD) death in dyslipidemia patients with or without lipid-lowering therapy. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study, and data were extracted from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Overall lifestyle was assessed based on Mediterranean diet score, physical activity, smoking status, sleep duration, and body mass index (BMI). Multivariate Cox regression model was used to explore the effect of overall lifestyle score on the risk of all-cause mortality and CVD death. Results were shown as hazard ratio (HR), with 95% confidence interval (CI). RESULTS: A total of 11,549 dyslipidemia patients were finally included in this study. The results showed that optimal overall lifestyle was associated with the decreased risk of all-cause mortality (HR = 0.47, 95%CI: 0.34–0.64) and CVD death (HR = 0.45, 95%CI: 0.22–0.94) in patients without lipid-lowering therapy. The similar results were found in patients with lipid-lowering therapy (all-cause mortality: HR = 0.45, 95%CI: 0.33–0.62; CVD death: HR = 0.38, 95%CI: 0.23–0.63). CONCLUSIONS: A favorable overall lifestyle may have great benefits to improve the prognosis of dyslipidemia, highlighting the importance of overall lifestyle adjustment for dyslipidemia patients. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12872-023-03450-1.