Lifestyle Beats Genetics on Path to Premature Death, Study Finds

Environmental and lifestyle factors play a far greater role than genetics in determining the likelihood of dying young, according to the largest study yet to untangle the contributions of nature and nurture to healthy aging.

A range of external factors including exercise and smoking — collectively dubbed the “exposome” — was almost 10 times more likely than genetic risk factors to explain premature mortality, scientists from the University of Oxford and Massachusetts General Hospital said in the Nature Medicine journal.

They analyzed mortality trends in the UK Biobank, which stores medical and genetic data from about 500,000 people.

The ...