There are just eight key steps to a long, healthy life, preliminary medical research by US scientists suggests.
Using the health data of US army veterans, health science specialists have discovered that adopting these eight healthy habits by middle age makes people live up to 24 years longer.
The study analysed the data of over 700,000 US army veterans aged 40-99 who were enrolled in the Million Veteran Program. The scientists then compared this data with the deaths of 33,000 people in this group.
They found that men who had all eight of the habits by age 40 are likely to live an average of 24 years longer than men with none of the habits. For women, those with all eight habits are predicted to live 21 years longer than women with none.
So what are the habits? The blueprint to ultimate health includes:
- being physically active
- not having an opioid addiction
- not smoking
- managing your stress
- having a good diet
- not binge drinking regularly
- having good ‘sleep hygiene’
- having positive social relationships.
Sleep hygiene means the routine that you do before bed to help you get to sleep, including winding down, going to bed at the same time every night, and avoiding electronic devices before bed.
“We were really surprised by just how much could be gained with the adoption of one, two, three, or all eight lifestyle factors,” said Xuan-Mai T Nguyen of Carle Illinois College of Medicine, who presented the findings at the American Society for Nutrition’s2023 conferencein Boston, USA. Nguyen is a health science specialist at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
If you’re yet to begin some of these habits, it’s not too late – according to Nguyen. “The earlier the better, but even if you only make a small change in your 40s, 50s, or 60s, it still is beneficial.”
If you’re going to pick just a few of the habits to stick to, the study suggests that exercising, not smoking, and not using opioids would be the ones to pick. According to the findings, these three habits are linked to a 30-45 per cent higher risk of death.
When it comes to lengthening your lifespan, positive social relationships are the least important of the eight habits – according to the findings. Though still significant, having good friends was linked only to a five per cent higher risk of death in the study.
The findings align with existing research on the importance of a healthy lifestyle to ageing well, including preventing chronic diseases.
However, this is only an observational study with the preliminary results that come before a peer-reviewed paper, so the findings do not prove that the absence of these habits cause death.
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