We vastly underestimate the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. People who follow the relatively simple rules of good health (no smoking, 30 minutes of daily activity, a Mediterraneann diet, no obesity, and perhaps a little wine) prevent disease, live 7 to 14 years longer than average, and, importantly, both reduce and delay end-of-life disability.
Here are
some facts from forbes.com about the benefits of healthy life:
- "Researchers at the University of Cambridge in England followed 20,000 middle-aged men and women in England for 11 years and found that nonsmokers with the healthiest eating and exercise habits at the outset had a 14-year-life-expectancy edge over the people with the worst habits.
- A 2001 Loma Linda University finding that Seventh-Day Adventists who kept good habits lived to an average age of 88, versus 78 for those who behaved less well. ... Seventh-Day Adventists [have] a life expectancy four to seven years longer than that of average Americans, probably because their faith preaches a vegetarian diet and exercise. ...
- Researchers at the Pacific Health Research Institute in Hawaii who followed 5,820 Japanese American men for 40 years found those who avoided risk factors such as obesity, heavy drinking, smoking and high blood pressure in middle age had a 69% chance of living to be 85, versus just 22% for men with six or more risk factors."
Remember, the older you get, the healthier you have been.
- Dr. Bob
Stay well.