Four steps to lengthen life
Eating five portions of fruit and vegetables every day could help to lengthen life
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Tuesday, 08, Jan 2008 09:56
Four simple steps could help people to live on average 14 years longer than those who do not follow them, new research suggests.
People who exercise regularly, do not smoke, drink moderate amounts of alcohol and eat five portions of fruit and vegetables each day can live over a decade longer than people who adopt none of these behaviours.
Scientists from the Medical Research Council and Cambridge University say the combined impact of the four steps show small changes have a marked impact on people's health.
Previous studies have shown how the steps individually can have a beneficial effect on health.
To assess the combined effect, the researchers studied the diets and lifestyles of 20,000 men and women aged between 45 and 79.
Between 1993 and 1997 the participants, none of whom had known cancer or heart or circulatory disease, completed a questionnaire that gave them a score of between zero and four.
A point was awarded for each of the four behaviours: not smoking; exercising; eating the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables; and drinking alcohol in moderation.
Deaths among the participants were recorded until 2006.
After taking age into account, the results showed that over an average period of 11 years, people with a score of zero were four times more likely to have died than those who had scored four in the questionnaire.
The scientists calculated that the people with a health score of zero had the same risk of dying as someone 14 years older who had scored four.
"These results may provide further support for the idea that even small differences in lifestyle may make a big difference to health in the population and encourage behaviour change," the researchers write in the journal PLoS Medicine.
Commenting on the study, Dr Joanna Owens, Cancer Research UK's senior science information officer, said: "This is the first study to examine how beneficial the combined lifestyle factors of not smoking, a high fruit and vegetable diet, reduced alcohol intake and being physically active might be to staying healthy.
"The results show that making healthy lifestyle choices do have a combined positive effect on health and can help people to live longer. Research tells us that around half of all cancers could be prevented by changes to lifestyle."