Healthy lifestyle could add seven years to life expectancy

PanARMENIAN.Net - People who do not smoke, are not obese, and consume alcohol moderately can expect to live seven years longer than the general population, and to spend most of these extra years in good health, according to a new study published on Thursday, July 20 in Health Affairs, Science Daily reports.

The new study shows that people who refrain from engaging in risky health behaviours not only have a very long life -- longer than the famously long-lived Japanese -- but that most of these additional years of life are spent in good health.

The study, which analyzed data for more than 14,000 U.S. individuals, found that never-smokers who were not obese lived 4-5 years longer than the general population, and that these extra years were free of disability. The results of the analysis further indicated that individuals who also consumed alcohol moderately lived seven more disability-free years than the general population, and had a total life expectancy surpassing that of the population of Japan, a country that is often considered to be a vanguard of life expectancy.

The study was conducted by Mikko Myrskylä, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Germany; and Neil Mehta, Professor of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan, USA.

The researchers noted that each of the three unhealthy behaviours -- obesity, smoking, and unhealthy consumption of alcohol -- was linked to a reduction in life expectancy and to an earlier occurrence of disabilities.

But there were also differences: smoking was found to be associated with an early death but not with an increase in the number of years with disability, whereas obesity was shown to be associated with a long period of time with disability.

Excessive alcohol consumption was found to be associated with both decreased lifespan and a reduced number of healthy years. However, the absence of all of these risky healthy behaviors was found to be associated with the greatest number of healthy years.