Association between healthy lifestyle factors and risk of chronic diarrhea: A cross-sectional study using NHANES 2007 to 2010 data

This study aimed to investigate the association between a healthy lifestyle and the risk of chronic diarrhea. A total of 2921 eligible participants from the 2007 to 2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey cycles were included in our study. We collected information on lifestyle factors such as diet, physical activity, sleep, smoking, and alcohol consumption, and defined chronic diarrhea as self-reported usual stool type corresponding to types 6 or 7 on the Bristol Stool Form Scale. The primary analysis used survey-weighted logistic regression to assess the association between healthy lifestyle behaviors and the risk of chronic diarrhea, and sensitivity analyses were performed to confirm the robustness of the findings. After adjusting for covariates, survey-weighted logistic regression showed that compared with the low lifestyle score group (0-2), the high lifestyle score group (4-5) was associated with a lower risk of chronic diarrhea (odds ratio [OR] = 0.49, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.29-0.82). When the high lifestyle score group was used as the reference, both the low-score group (OR = 2.06, 95% CI = 1.22-3.47) and the middle-score group (score of 3) (OR = 1.57, 95% CI = 1.03-2.39) were associated with a higher risk of chronic diarrhea. However, in the analysis of individual lifestyle factors after covariate adjustment, only the inverse association between diet and chronic diarrhea remained significant (OR = 0.58, 95% CI = 0.35-0.99). In addition, the interaction analysis did not identify any significant interactions among the covariates. A greater number of low-risk lifestyle factors may be associated with a lower risk of chronic diarrhea. Improving lifestyle behaviors holds substantial potential as a primary prevention strategy for chronic diarrhea, particularly among populations in economically underdeveloped regions.