Table 3 Summary of implementation of risk factor improvement scenarios compared to our base-case scenario of projected continuing trends in exposure to risk factors, disease burden, and mortality

Risk factor	Model variable	10% improvement in risk factor exposure^a		Theoretical minimum risk level of exposure (all individuals affected)
Risk factor	Model variable	Who in the base-case population is affected	10% improvement
Smoking	Current smokers stop smoking	Smokers	% increase of base-case	All smokers become ex-smokers and smoke initiation rate set to 0
	Number of cigarettes smoked per day	Smokers	% decrease of base-case	Set to 0
	Environmental tobacco smoking	Non-smokers	Calculated in the model from the above	No environmental tobacco smoking
Fruit and vegetables	g/day of fruit + g/day of vegetables	All	% increase of base-case	Theoretical minimum risk: 4 portions of each^b
Physical activity	# of active days	10% of anyone with <7 days of physical activity per week	An increase of 1 day of physical activity per week	7 days of physical activity
BMI^c	BMI (kg/m2)	All	10% decrease of excess risk compared to theoretical minimum risk^b	Theoretical minimum risk: BMI = 22^b
Total Cholesterol	Total cholesterol (mmol/L)	All	10% decrease of excess risk compared to theoretical minimum risk^b	Theoretical minimum risk: Total cholesterol = 4 mmol/L^b
SBP	SBP (mmHg)	All	10% decrease of excess risk compared to theoretical minimum risk^b	Theoretical minimum risk: SBP = 112^b

BMI Body mass index, SBP Systolic blood pressure.
^aThe 10% improvement is calculated annually relative to the base-case scenario for that year, e.g. in 2023—10% of base-case in 2023, in 2024—10% of base-case in 2024.
^bTheoretical minimal risk exposure levels are derived from a distribution based on high-quality studies [see Supplementary Methods page 34–136] and, therefore, differ in each model iteration; presented values are the mean for the 100 iterations of this model. An illustrative example with BMI: if the BMI of individual X in the base-case scenario is 28, in a 10% improvement scenario, this would be 27.4 [(28−22) × 0.1 = 0.6 reduction in BMI].
^cWe also model the mediating effect of decreasing BMI on SBP and total cholesterol.

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