5 Healthy Lifestyle Habits To Increase Life Expectancy by a Decade

Time and time again, we find ourselves trying to break our bad habits to live better, longer with healthy lifestyle choices. As challenging as it may seem to be, hitting the gym more frequently, quitting smoking and stop eating your favourite junk food or cutting back on the alcohol, we’ve got to do it to tack on extra years.  Hello, but isn’t those years not so appealing if some or most of them are riddled with heart disease, diabetes or cancer?

But we’ve got good news! A recent study shows that not only considerable gains in life expectancy but also healthier years can be yours, as a result of healthier lifestyle changes in 5 areas.

Want to Extend your Life Expectancy by more than 10 years?

You can do just that by adopting five healthy lifestyle habits! In a 2018 study, researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that adopting five healthy habits could extend life expectancy by 14 years for women and by 12 years for men. In the study, people started adopting healthy lifestyle from the age of 50:

• eating a diet high in plants and low in fats
• exercising at a moderate to vigorous level for several hours a week
• maintaining a healthy body weight
• not smoking
• consuming no more than one alcoholic drink a day for women and two for men

The researchers compiled the results for this study with information initially from national Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.  The study data was from 1980 to 2014 involving 122,000 people in total.

Then from 2013 to 2014, with a panel of 2,128 adults, 50 to 80 years old, researchers used the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to see how lifestyle factors, like exercise and diet, affect life expectancy and health risks, over time in the United States.

Significant Reduction in Deaths due to Heart Disease and Cancer

According to Dr. Li even “modest improvement” in one’s behaviour could have a “big impact” in the long term. These lifestyle changes could help in the prevention of heart disease and premature death in people who have heart disease, as well as a reduction in risk of cancer death too.

Researchers’ data from over 30 year period show the significant benefits of maintaining the 5 healthy lifestyles – 82% less likely to die from heart diseases and 65% less likely to die from cancer.

You don’t have to wait till age 5o to start, everyone can begin to start working on it from your 20’s, 30’s or 40’s. And it is never too late to start at 60’s, 70’s & 80’s.

Important Health Message to All

The study underlines and echoes an important public health message: Huge gains in health and longevity is possible by just making simple changes in our lifestyle and behaviour. That is why each of us should not only adopt but encourage and promote quitting smoking, exercising regularly, maintaining your BMI, eating healthily and drinking in moderation. These lifestyle changes have enormous direct positive impact on your health!

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• didyouknow
• healthy diet
• healthy diet bmi and exercise
• healthy living
• longer life
• lower cancer risk exercise