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'Never too late' to increase longevity
Making healthy lifestyle decisions in later life can still help you to live longer, an American study has concluded.
And, the researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston estimate, lifestyle accounts for 70% of our longevity, with our genes responsible for just 30%.
The study looked at more than 2,000 healthy men with an average age of 72 years at the beginning of the research, of which 41% survived to 90-years-old or more. It found that smoking, diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure significantly reduced the life expectancy of the participants.
However, men who undertook vigorous exercise had a 'substantially improved' chance of living to 90.
The researchers estimate that a 70-year-old non-smoking man of a normal weight, with no diabetes and with normal blood pressure, who exercised 2-4 times a week, stood a 54% chance of living to at least 90. In men with 'adverse' risk factors in all five categories, this dropped to just 4%.
Writing in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the study's authors concluded that 'healthy lifestyle and risk management should be continued in elderly years to reduce mortality and disability'.
Category: Healthy Lifestyle
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