The lifestyle factors of physical activity and diet balance associated with HPV infection in China: The cross-sectional study

Background: Human wellbeing has been linked with lifestyle factors such as physical activity, diet balance, sleep quality, depression, and anxiety. However, few studies illustrate the relationship between such lifestyle factors and HPV infection. In this study, we investigated the association between lifestyle factors, age, disease status and HPV infection. Participants and methods: Participants were recruited through a digital eHealth platform in Shenzhen, Mainland China. Both lifestyle factors and cervicovaginal mucus (CVM) samples to test for HPV outcomes were collected from each participant as a cross-sectional study. In addition, the eHealth platform recorded age and current or history diseases, which were adjusted to apply for both univariable and multivariable logistic regression. Furthermore, lifestyle factors were categorized as different levels to conduct stratification analysis. Results: We recruited 149 HPV positive and 346 HPV negative participants through HPV detection. Physical activity and diet balance were significantly associated with HPV infection in lifestyle factors (P values < 0.001) after adjusting for age and current or history diseases. However, stratified analysis showed three factors were insignificant for HPV infection – namely, sleep quality, depression, and anxiety. Most HPV infections involved a sole HPV serotype (83%), and diet balance was the most significant difference between sole and multiple HPV infections. Conclusions: Among lifestyle factors, physical inactivity or diet imbalance can significantly increase HPV infection risk. In particular, diet balance might be related to the number of HPV serotypes. Our results suggest that exercising and regulating diet may reduce the risk of HPV infection.