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Healthy Lifestyle Prolongs Your Life by 14 Years!

Make the 4 points

Jan 8, 2008 09:15 GMT  ·  By
The People of the Okinawas Island (Japan) are the longest lived on Earth due to the healthy lifestyle
   The People of the Okinawas Island (Japan) are the longest lived on Earth due to the healthy lifestyle

Living like Brad Pitt will prolong your life by 14 years! Exercising, not drinking too much, eating your fruit and vegetables and not smoking can have this impact on you, as found by a research made by the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council of Norfolk (UK) between 1993 and 2006 and published in The Public Library of Science Medicine.

The long study was made on 20,000 subjects aged 45 to 79. Those who did not match any of the criteria were four times more likely to have deceased during the research period.

Subjects were socially mixed, overwhelmingly white and did not experience cancer or heart issues at the beginning of the research. Each of the next criteria represented a point: currently non-smoker, drinking just 1-14 units of alcohol (0.5-7 glasses of wine) weekly, consuming five servings of fruit and vegetables daily and being active (having a sedentary job but exercising at least 30 minutes daily or having a non-sedentary job).

4 points subjects experienced a much lower death rate during the research period compared to those with 0 points. The 60-year-old subjects with zero points had the same likelihood of dying as the 74-year-old subjects with 4 points. The results were similar, no matter the body weight and economic condition.

"We've know that individually, measures such as not smoking and exercising can have an impact upon longevity, but this is the first time we have looked at them altogether. And we also found that social class and BMI - body mass index - really did not have a role to play. It means a large proportion of the population really could feel health benefits through moderate changes." said lead researcher Professor Kay-Tee Khaw.

The greatest drop attributed to healthy lifestyle was due to low risk of cardiovascular disease by 5 times. But healthy lifestyle was also connected to decreased cancer deaths. Even if people with cancer and heart conditions were excluded, the team discovered that those with severe conditions lived longer, the higher points they've got.