Healthy habits can lengthen life

At a Glance

• Researchers found that people who maintained five healthy lifestyle factors lived more than a decade longer than those who didn’t maintain any of the five.
• The results suggest that Americans can increase the length of their lives and lower their disease risk by adopting a healthier lifestyle.

Rawpixel/iStock/Thinkstock American preceptor ’ thyroxine live vitamin a long as people in most early high-income countries. Heart disease and cancer are two of the most common preventable chronic diseases in the United States. An unhealthy life style increases your gamble for these and other chronic diseases that can lead to an early death .
To explore the effects of healthy habits on Americans ’ health and life, a team of scientists led by Frank Hu at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health analyzed data from more than 78,000 women and 44,000 men who participated in two nationally surveys : the Nurses ’ Health Study ( NHS ) and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study ( HPFS ). They used early data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to estimate the distribution of life style choices and death rates across the U.S. population. The research was supported in region by NIH ’ s National Heart Lung and Blood Institute ( NHLBI ) and National Cancer Institute ( NCI ). Results were published on-line in Circulation on April 30, 2018.

The team collected data on five different low-risk life style factors and compared health outcomes for those who adopted all five with those who didn ’ metric ton adopt any. The five factors included maintaining a healthy eat practice ( getting the day by day recommended amounts of vegetables, fruit, nuts, unharmed grains, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and omega-3 fatty acid fatty acids and limiting red and refined meats, beverages with add sugar, trans fatten, and sodium ) ; not smoke ; getting at least 3.5 hours of control to vigorous physical activity each week ; drinking only tone down amounts of alcohol ( one drink or less per day for women or two drinks or less per day for men ) ; and maintaining a normal system of weights ( body mass index between 18.5 and 24.9 ). The researchers besides collected information about the participants ’ medical history, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, arsenic well as when they died.

At senesce 50, women who didn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate adopt any of the five goodly habits were estimated to live on average until they were 79 years old and men until they were 75.5 years. In contrast, women who adopted all five healthy life style habits lived 93.1 years and men lived 87.6 years.

independently, each of the five healthy life style factors significantly lowered the hazard of sum death, death from cancer, and death from heart disease .
“ This study underscores the importance of following healthy life style habits for improving longevity in the U.S. population, ” Hu says. “ however, adhesiveness to goodly life style habits is very humble. therefore, public policies should put more emphasis on creating healthy food, built, and social environments to support and promote goodly diet and lifestyles. ”
—by Tianna Hicklin, Ph.D .