Association of healthy lifestyle score with all-cause mortality and life expectancy: a city-wide prospective cohort study of cancer survivors

BACKGROUND: Adherence to a healthy lifestyle could reduce the cancer mortality in the western population. We conducted a city-wide prospective study in China investigating the association of a healthy lifestyle score with all-cause mortality and the life expectancy in cancer survivors. METHODS: This prospective cohort study included 46,120 surviving patients who were firstly diagnosed with cancer in Guangzhou. Five low-risk lifestyle factors including never smoking, never alcohol use, regular physical activity (≥ 2 h/week), sufficient sleep (≥ 6 h/day), and normal or high BMI (≥ 18.5 kg/m(2)) were assessed and a lifestyle score (0–5, a higher score indicates healthier lifestyle) was generated. Hazard ratios (HRs) of all-cause mortality and the life expectancy by levels of the lifestyle scores were estimated. RESULTS: Of 46,120 cancer survivors registered from 2010 to 2017, during an average follow-up of 4.3 years (200,285 person-years), 15,209 deaths were recorded. Adjusted HRs for mortality in cancer survivors with lifestyle score of 0–2, versus 5, were 2.59 (95% confidence interval (CI): 2.03–3.30) in women, 1.91 (95%CI 1.77–2.05) in men, 2.28 (95%CI 2.03–2.55) in those aged <65 years, and 1.90 (95%CI 1.75, 2.05) in those aged ≥ 65 years. Life expectancy at age 55 for those with a score of 0–2 and 5 was 53.4 and 57.1 months, respectively. We also found that cancer survivors with healthy lifestyle scores of 5 showed 59.9 months of life expectancy on average, which was longer than those with a score of 0–2. CONCLUSION: Adopting a healthy lifestyle was associated with a substantially lower risk of all-cause mortality and longer life expectancy in cancer survivors. Our findings should be useful for health education and health promotion in primary care and clinical practice. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12916-021-02024-2.