According to a study that was recently conducted involving middle aged and older aged citizens of Norfolk in the United Kingdom, the average lifespan can be increased by as many as ten years by abstaining from smoking, being active, eating vegetables and fruits and moderating alcohol intake, when compared to individuals who do not do any of these things.
This study was published in an online open access journal called the Public Library of Science Medicine, regularly referred to as PLoS Medicine. The purpose of the study was to show the public and professionals in the health industry that healthy behaviors have a clear cut impact on longevity. This is because a lot of information currently available is contradictory or confusing in nature. Nobody is exactly sure what makes a healthy diet, or how much is enough exercise, or how much alcohol is harmful. While there is plenty of research on each of these individual activities, there is very little information pertaining to the combined effects of these actions.
Focusing on these four simple healthful behaviors in combination allowed the researchers to create a way to motivate people to make small changes to promote big differences in their lives. Four types of data were recorded from each of the participants in the study, resulting in health scores ranging from 0 to 4. One point was given for each characteristic: non smoking, physically active, moderate intake of alcohol, and consuming 5 servings of vegetables and fruits a day.
After taking the age of each participant into account, the results of the study showed that people who had a health behavior score of 0, meaning that none of the four characteristics applied, were as much as four times more likely to have died by the time of the follow up period, than people who had a health behavior score of 4. The most common cause of death in participants happened to be cardiovascular disease, which is a common result of poor nutrition and fitness.
People who had a health behavior score of 2 were twice as likely to have died in the same follow up period. These findings, according to researchers, suggest that adopting these four simple healthy behaviors will allow middle aged and older people to make four-fold improvements to their chances of survival for as much as a decade longer.
The study also suggests that the risk of death goes down significantly as the number of positive and healthy behaviors goes up. Death caused by cardiovascular related conditions, especially, can be avoided more easily by implementing just these four positive healthy benefits, for example. The researchers behind this study hope that people will adopt these four healthy and positive actions to significantly elongate their healthy lives.
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