If it needs re-enforcing, here is the main medical message all over again: don’t smoke and live a healthy lifestyle!
If you don’t smoke, you’ll live longer and are less likely to die of heart disease and cancer. We all know that (yawn…)
But if you are a non-smoker or gave up smoking, a good lifestyle can HALVE your risk of dying from cancer, cardiovascular disease and other causes, a new study finds.
Researchers looked at diet and lifestyle questionnaires filled out in 1992 and 1993 by almost 112,000 non-smoking women and men in the Cancer Prevention Study. The participants were scored based on their adherence to American Cancer Society prevention guidelines regarding body mass index, physical activity, diet and alcohol consumption.
After 14 years of follow-up (2006- 2007), participants who were highly compliant with the recommendations had a 42% lower risk of death vs. those who were the least compliant. Among those with higher compliance scores, the risk of cardiovascular-related death was 58% lower for women and 48% lower for men, and the risk of cancer death was 24% lower in women and 30% lower in men.
[American Cancer Society, news release, April 14, 2011].
Well, the ACS is no friend of ours and this could just be blowing their own trumpet.
But I don’t think it does any harm, to keep hearing this compelling message, over and over:
- Eat well
- Keep your weight down to within 15% of your ideal
- Exercise plenty (but not ridiculous)
- Drink moderately (only wine, in my opinion)
If you do, you’ll probably live on and on and on, whatever your genes are!
And, of course, get a copy of my “How to Live Beyond 100 Years” manual.