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Want to Add 14 Years to Your Life? It’s Easy By Darya Pino While most people agree that it is a good idea to embrace heart-healthy behaviors like eating right, exercising regularly and not smoking, it is often difficult to translate these abstract ideas into meaningful habits and health benefits. The recommendations for healthy living can sometimes seem so complicated and the rewards so distant and intangible that it is hardly worth the effort. But a new study by British scientists at the University of Cambridge has shown that four simple, easily defined behaviors combined to predict a four-fold difference in mortality risk, adding an equivalent of fourteen years of life—enough to make almost any behavioral change seem worthwhile. The study, published January 8 in the journal PLoS, followed 20,244 men and women age 45 to 79 who were scored on a scale of 0-4 on four behavioral measures: smoking, activity level, alcohol consumption and fruit and vegetable intake. The scoring was simple. Participants scored a point if they currently do not smoke, if they engage in any physical activity either at work, recreationally or both, had moderate alcohol consumption (1-14 drinks per week) and had a plasma vitamin C level greater than 50 mmol/L, indicating at least five servings of fruit and vegetables per day. Each of these behaviors was independently associated with decreased risk of mortality from all causes, with current smoking being the strongest risk factor. Importantly, combining the behaviors had the strongest impact on mortality risk, with those scoring 4 having a four-fold lower mortality risk than those scoring zero. The correlations were strongest for deaths from cardiovascular problems, but were also associated with deaths from cancer and other causes. The authors of the study chose these four behavioral measures precisely because they are easy to measure and have been extensively studied and shown to be associated with health benefits. What was not known before this study was the combined impact of these behaviors on a single simple measure such as mortality. This dramatic improvement in mortality risk demonstrates how much an impact small behavioral changes can make for your health. Better still, the behaviors measured in this study are near the minimum of what is currently recommended for optimal health and are attainable by even the busiest and laziest among us. Obviously, not smoking is a no-brainer since smoking is known to be a major risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease and a large host of other cancers and diseases. If you are a current smoker you should quit immediately. Likewise, the scoring for physical activity was minimal. To assess this measure the participants were asked only two questions, one regarding their physical activity at work (i.e. sedentary, standing, physical work or heavy manual work) and one regarding their recreational activity (defined by the amount of time spent per day). Any activity at all, a daily walk with the dog for example, qualified as physically active and was scored as one point. Presumably, more physical activity than this would endow greater health benefits and was not captured by this study. The heart benefits of moderate alcohol consumption are also well documented and the minimum was easy to achieve by the criteria set here. Interestingly, the study did not distinguish between a small number (1-2) of daily drinks versus a larger number of drinks on a fewer number of days, which has been shown to be an important component for the health benefits of alcohol. Alcohol is thought to benefit the heart by preventing blood clotting that can cause heart attack and stroke and also raising “good” HDL cholesterol. However, excessive alcohol consumption (more than three drinks per day) can damage the liver, increase the risk for some cancers and cause many behavioral problems that can quickly outweigh the health benefits. Finally, fruit and vegetable consumption was defined by a biomarker of >50 mmol/L of plasma vitamin C. While this marker is considered reliable for indicating five servings of fruit and vegetables per day, this is only about half of the recommended daily amount. For optimum health you should strive for at least nine servings of vegetables and fruit per day. The study did not account for other known healthy dietary habits such as whole grain and unsaturated fat consumption. The take-home message here is that every little thing counts, and the more healthy things you do the greater your benefit—to the tune of adding over a decade to your life! Picture each of those years watching your grandchildren celebrate birthdays, weddings and graduations... Darya Pino is a fourth year graduate student in Neuroscience.
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