How Five Habits Can Make a Huge Difference

According to a new study led by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, five healthy habits maintained during adulthood may add more than a decade to your life expectancy.  The bad news - Americans have a shorter average life expectancy — 79.3 years — than almost all other high-income countries. The U.S. ranked 31st in the world for life expectancy in 2015. This is disgraceful. It is probably due to our income inequality, racism, and lack of universal health care.  The good news – you can make a big difference in your health and life expectancy by consistently doing the things you already know are important. 

The new study, published in the journal Circulation, aimed to quantify how much healthy lifestyle factors might be able to boost longevity in the U.S.  Data came from Harvard Chan researchers and colleagues looking at 34 years of data from 78,865 women and 27 years of data from 44,354 men participating in, respectively, the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. The researchers looked at how five low-risk lifestyle factors might impact mortality:

1. not smoking

2. keeping a low body mass index (18.5-24.9 kg/m2)

3. doing at least 30 minutes or more per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity

4. having a moderate alcohol intake (for example, up to about one 5-ounce glass of wine per day for women, or up to two glasses for men) 

5. keeping a healthy diet.

Women and men who checked all five boxes had an average life expectancy that was 14 years and 12 years longer than the life expectancy of people with none of those healthy habits. And the researchers found a dose-response relationship, meaning that for each healthy habit a person adopted, life expectancy increased.   As you can see – these are very large numbers.

Researchers also found that American women and men who maintained the healthiest lifestyles were 82 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 65 percent less likely to die from cancer when compared with those with the least healthy lifestyles over the course of the roughly 30-year study period. For study participants who didn’t adopt any of the low-risk habits, the researchers estimated that life expectancy at age 50 was 29 years for women and 25.5 years for men. But for those who adopted all five, life expectancy at age 50 was projected to be 43.1 years for women and 37.6 years for men. In other words, women who maintained all five healthy habits gained, on average, 14 years of life, and men who did so gained 12 years, compared with those who didn’t maintain healthy habits.

Compared with those who didn’t follow any of the healthy lifestyle habits, those who followed all five were 74 percent less likely to die during the study period. The researchers also found that there was a dose-response relationship between each individual healthy lifestyle behavior and a reduced risk of early death, and that the combination of all five healthy behaviors was linked to the most additional years of life.

“This study underscores the importance of following healthy lifestyle habits for improving longevity in the U.S. population,” said Frank Hu, chair of the Department of Nutritionat Harvard Chan School and senior author of the study. “However, adherence to healthy lifestyle habits is very low. Therefore, public policies should put more emphasis on creating healthy food, built, and social environments to support and promote healthy diet and lifestyles.”

Other Harvard Chan School study authors included Yanping Li, Dong Wang, Xiaoran Liu, Klodian Dhana, Meir Stampfer, and Walter Willett.

Let’s look at the healthy habits realistically.  They are sensible and well known, but not easy for many people. 

1. Quitting smoking can be hard and should be done early in life.  Vaping is not the answer as it has its own hazards, including nicotine dependency and toxins in the vaping liquid.  For help to quit smoking the Centers for Disease Control has a good website and a line to call for advice – 800 784 8669.  Your primary care provider should also be a good source of help.

 2. Find your body mass index at your doctor’s office or at nhlbi.nih.gov.

 Achieving a healthy weight may be difficult if you are overweight and have tried dieting without success. Some plans being advertised on TV are quite costly.  Weight Watchers is considered one of the most effective because of its healthy diet and group support.  The book The Ultimate Volumetrics Dietby Barbara Rolls at Pennsylvania State University provides a healthy diet that works with minimal hunger.  Visit the National Weight Control Registry to read about over 10,000 people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off, and find out about their techniques. 

3. Doing 30 minutes or more per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity may be hard for sedentary people.  Check with your primary care provider first.  Find friends to go on regular walks with you, join a gym that is friendly and has trainers to give sound advice, exercise to stimulating music that you love (for me its Cajun and Zydeco).  Plan ways to put the half hour  into your day – breaking into 2x15 or 3x10 is OK. Wear a ‘Fitbit’ or similar device if that helps you.  Do chair exercises in a class or in front of television if standing is too difficult.

4. Having a moderate alcohol intake can be hard for regular drinkers.  Much of our social life centers around alcohol – people who drink enjoy the taste of wines, beer and whiskey/gin/ rum and also like the feelings of relaxation and the ‘buzz’. At social gatherings it is easy to exceed a one drink level for women and two drinks for men. You should be extra careful if you are taking medications that do not mix well with alcohol or have a condition, such as high blood pressure, that is worsened by drinking.  Do not drink if you are going to drive a car or operate any machinery.  Do not drink if you are pregnant, or planning to become pregnant.  For many good ideas about moderating your alcohol use, go to the NIH website ‘Rethinking Drinking’.

5. Keeping a healthy diet is the fifth habit that will help you.  On this website, go to the upper left corner and type in ‘The Mind Diet’.  You will find a detailed description of what healthy foods to eat, and which others to avoid.  People who don’t use the internet can look at The Ultimate Volumetric Diet by Barbara Rolls or the Mind Diet Cookbook by Kristin Diversi.

Sadja Greenwood MD, MPH

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