A Cambridge University study has confirmed (what we all know deep down) that if you exercise regularly, drink in moderation, eat plenty of fruit and vegetables and don’t smoke you have a chance of adding another 14 years to your lifespan. The findings held true irrespective of how high an individual’s BMI (Body Mass Index) was or how poor they were.
A group of 20,000 individuals from 45 to 79 and a range of social backgrounds were monitored over a ten year period. At the time none was aware of having cancer or heart disease. The individual’s were scored on whether they didn’t smoke (1 point), drank in moderation - 1 to 7 glasses of wine per week (1 point), weren’t inactive (1 point) and ate at least 5 portions of fruit and veg a day (1 point).
The results are plotted on the graph below:
In summary, the red line shows the survival rate for those individuals who scored zero points ie smoked, were inactive, ate little fruit and veg and drank a lot. The blue line are the individuals who scored 4 points and were considered healthy.
The results of this study also found that those individuals who scored zero were 5 times more likely to get heart disease than those scoring 4. Also if an individual with higher results developed cancer, their survival rate was much better than those who scored lower or zero.
Little changes to lifestyle - big impact on quality of life … Food for thought?
Elaine Warburton
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