14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists who conducted a recent research study at Harvard School of Public Health claim to have found ways to increase people's lifespan with at least 5 years.
Every individual on the planet will die of some cause at a certain point, and the reasons are various, as is their likeliness to occur, ranging from the 20% heart disease risk to the 1 in 3.7 million chance to get eaten by sharks. As Christopher Wanjek, the author of "Bad Medicine" and "Food At Work" books says, the sum of all these risks yields an appalling 110% chance to die of whatever causes. You can do the math if you don't trust his calculations, but you should have the daily reports of new cancer-causing chemicals or junk-food types thrown into the equation.
But don't give up just yet. According to the new study, in spite of the grim percentage, you can still add years to your life by positively changing your lifestyle. The Nurse's Health Study monitored the activity of more than 120.000 nurses over 32 years, and from the 9.000 deaths recorded in the last 25 years, the Harvard scientists pointed out that 55% could've been avoided by regular practice of physical activities, not smoking, keeping thin and eating healthy. The numbers are valid for 72% of the cardiovascular cases, as well as for 44% of the cancer-caused deaths. This was among the first, but clearly the largest studies of its kind, focusing on a combination of multiple negative factors instead of just one. As it was demonstrated, even 30-minute daily walks can noticeably reduce death factors.
The healthy diet matter concurs with the results of another study that basically states: "eat less." Edward Weiss, a researcher at Saint Louis University involved in the study says: "There is plenty of evidence that calorie restriction can reduce your risks for many common diseases including cancer, diabetes and heart disease, and you may live to be substantially older." If you don't care about your own lifespan, you should know that at least you'll get to be healthier. Eric Ravussin, a specialist in human health and performance at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana claims that eating 15% less since the age of 25 might stretch your life for 4.5 more years. Of course, he conducts his studies on laboratory pets and he has only just begun to apply it to humans, but, as he tells LiveScience, "There is absolutely no reason to think it won't work [on people]."
If the aforementioned pieces of advice still seem too much for you to do, then perhaps you should keep praying for the quick discovery of the life-extending and anti-aging pills, while lying sedentarily in your own cozy bed. Research is going well in that field too, or so I've heard.