Four health changes prolong life 14 years

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People who drink moderately, exercise, quit smoking and eat five

servings of fruit and vegetables each day live on average 14 years longer.

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Link:

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSL0724344420080108

Text:

Four health changes can prolong life 14 years

Tue Jan 8, 2008 10:53am EST

By Kahn

LONDON (Reuters) - People who drink moderately, exercise, quit smoking

and eat five servings of fruit and vegetables each day live on average

14 years longer than people who adopt none of these behaviors,

researchers said on Tuesday.

Overwhelming evidence has shown that these things contribute to

healthier and longer lives, but the new study actually quantified

their combined impact, the British team said.

" These results may provide further support for the idea that even

small differences in lifestyle may make a big difference to health in

the population and encourage behavior change, " the researchers wrote

in the journal PLoS Medicine.

Between 1993 and 1997 the researchers questioned 20,000 healthy

British men and women about their lifestyles. They also tested every

participant's blood to measure vitamin C intake, an indicator of how

much fruit and vegetables people ate.

Then they assigned the participants -- aged 45-79 -- a score of

between 0 and 4, giving one point for each of the healthy behaviors.

After allowing for age and other factors that could affect the

likelihood of dying, the researchers determined people with a score of

0 were four times as likely to have died, particularly from

cardiovascular disease.

The researchers, who tracked deaths among the participants until 2006,

also said a person with a health score of 0 had the same risk of dying

as someone with a health score of 4 who was 14 years older.

The lifestyle change with the biggest benefit was giving up smoking,

which led to an 80 percent improvement in health, the study found.

This was followed by eating fruits and vegetables.

Moderate drinking and keeping active brought the same benefits,

Kay-Tee Khaw and colleagues at the University of Cambridge and the

Medical Research Council said.

" Armed with this information, public-health officials should now be in

a better position to encourage behavior changes likely to improve the

health of middle-aged and older people, " the researchers wrote.

(Reporting by Kahn, Editing by Will Dunham and Jon Boyle)