A new study from the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University found women age 50 who adopted four or five low-risk lifestyle factors lived 34.4 years free of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Women who adopted no low-risk lifestyle factors lived only 23.7 years.
Fifty-year-old men who adopted four or five low-risk lifestyle factors added 7.6 years to their lives, living until 81.1 years of age, the study found.
Moderate alcohol consumption – one drink a day for women, two for men – won’t do the job alone. The low-risk lifestyle also included a healthy diet, at least 30 minutes of moderate or vigorous activity, no smoking, and a body-mass index (BMI) below 30. The more of these factors at age 50, the longer one lived disease free.
Discussing the results of the study, the authors note there were “relatively small differences in life expectancies across different levels of alcohol consumption compared with other individual lifestyle factors.
“The cardiovascular benefits of moderate alcohol consumption have been consistently observed in large cohort studies, but alcohol consumption and risk of cancer showed a dose-response relation”; i.e., the more one drinks, the greater risk of cancer.
“Thus,” the new study explains, “current guidelines do not encourage a non-alcohol drinker to start drinking just for the benefit of preventing cardiovascular disease.”
The study goes on to suggest “promotion of a healthy lifestyle would help to reduce the healthcare burdens through lowering the risk of developing multiple chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, and extending disease-free life expectancy.
“Public policies for improving food and the physical environment conducive to adopting a healthy diet and lifestyle, as well as relevant policies and regulations (for example, smoking ban in public places or trans-fat restrictions), are critical to improving life expectancy, especially life expectancy free of major chronic diseases,” the study concludes.