Scientists from Harvard and Amsterdam Universities of Applied Sciences have discovered that good habits, including physical activity and a healthy diet, can extend a person’s life by nearly ten years.
In this regard, the British Medical Journal reported that the researchers used data on more than 100,000 healthy people over the age of 50 in their study, where researchers followed their health over 20 years. During this period, the researchers focused their attention on the incidence of cardiovascular disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes, the age at which people developed symptoms of these diseases, and the age lived by the person after contracting the disease.
Ultimately, the researchers were able to identify five primary risk factors for disease: smoking, alcohol use (even at “moderate*” doses), an unhealthy diet high in fat or sugar, a low level of physical activity, and excess weight calculated on a mass index basis. the body.
Based on these five factors, the researchers determined the number of “healthy years” that await a person after 50 years of age. Thus, women who followed 4-5 good habits – such as eating healthy, not smoking, staying away from alcohol and maintaining a normal weight – lived an average of 84.4 years, while women without these habits lived 73.7 years. As for men, the same indicators for them were 81.1 and 73.5 years.
