New research demonstrates there are five basic rules to increasing your life expectancy.
As we mentioned last week, January is derived from the Latin god ‘Janus’ who is the god of new beginnings and transitions. Despite the fact that Oscar Wilde said ‘life is too important to be taken seriously’ most of us make new year propositions in order to enrich our lives. With a sense of new beginnings, we often review our own lifestyles as we all aspire to live a long, happy life to the point when technology no longer makes any sense.
My favourite one-liner about generation gaps is somewhere an elderly lady reads a book on how to use the internet, while a young boy googles ‘how to read a book’. As it happens according to the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) this is in some part already true.
Living Longer: Age 70 is now the New 65
Age 70 is the new 65 in terms of health and life expectancy. For men who are now 70 years old, they can expect the same quality of life regarding health and life expectancy as someone who was 65 years old in 1997. Whereas for 70-year-old women in 2020 things are a bit slower to improve (sorry ladies!). Comparably they enjoy the same quality of life as a 65-year-old in 1981.
Unfortunately, this may be reflected by the UK’s state pension age which is set to rise. For both men and women, this is currently 65, increasing to 66 by October 2020, then to 67 between 2026 and 2028 then finally to age 68 between 2037 and 2039, although this revised timetable is not yet officially confirmed.
But what if I told you that you could further increase your life expectancy even more without chronic illness?
Five things that Increase our Life Expectancy
Cancer, cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes are unfortunately the three most common diseases in old age. Estimates of the loss in life expectancy due to these chronic conditions range from 7.5 to 20 years, according to a variety of different studies on different countries.
Surprisingly there is very little research which has looked directly at how a combination of multiple lifestyle factors may relate to life expectancy free from the major diseases. Yet these diseases are also closely linked to people’s lifestyles. This has been endorsed conclusively by a new body of research from America that has just been published in the British Medical Journal last week. This suggested that women can gain increase life expectancy by a further ten years and men seven years of life free from these key health issues. This, it appears, can be obtained if we exercise regularly, drink in moderation only, have a healthy weight, good diet and do not smoke.
A Healthier Life: Positive Message for Public Health
The lead author of this new study Dr Frank Hu, of Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, said the study had “a positive message for the public. They gain not just more years of life but good years through improved lifestyle choices.” The participants in the study who fared the best, met at least four of the five following criteria. These were those that had never smoked, had a healthy and balanced diet, undertook 30 minutes each day of moderate to vigorous exercise, had a body mass index (or BMI) of 18.5-24.9 and drank no more than a small glass of wine if female or a pint of beer a day if male. Men who smoked more than 15 cigarettes a day and obese men and women (with a BMI of more than 30) had the lowest disease-free life expectancy.
The study was based on large number of people who were tracked using data from two studies called the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professions Follow-up Study (HPFS). One of the limitations of the study was that most of the participants were white health professionals! The research team also had to rely on people giving them their own information on their food intake, their exercise habits and even their height and weight, which is not always accurate. However, as people were health professionals it would be reasonable to assume a degree of accuracy.
Life Expectancy: Where did the data come from?
The Nurse Health Study began in 1976, when 121,700 female nurses aged 30-55 years provided information on their medical, lifestyle, and other health related variables. In 1980, 92,468 of these nurses also completed a validated food frequency questionnaire on diet which was also factored into the study.
The Health Professions Follow-up Study meanwhile was established in 1986, when 51,529 male US health professionals (dentists, optometrists, osteopaths, podiatrists, pharmacists, and veterinarians) aged 40-75 years completed a mailed questionnaire about their medical history and lifestyle. For both studies, self-administered questionnaires were sent every two years to update the information and identify newly diagnosed cases of illness and disease.
What were the Outcomes?
There were a few unexpected outcomes from the study as well. Some things however were true for both sexes – not only did a healthy lifestyle reduce the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes, it also improved survival if men and women were diagnosed with any of the diseases.
The results were published using simple bar graphs for men and women with life expectancy (shown as LE) over 50 years of age depending on the number low risk factors.
There were a few unexpected outcomes from the study. Not only did a healthy lifestyle reduce the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes, it also improved survival if men and women were diagnosed with any of the diseases. Cancer Research UK for instance has calculated that 4 in 10 cancers can be prevented by people changing aspects of their lifestyle, such as cutting down on processed meat, eating more fibre in their diet and protecting their skin in the sun.
Estimated life expectancy at age 50 years with and without cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and/or type 2 diabetes among participants of Nurses’ Health Study (women) and Health Professionals Follow-up Study (men) according to number of low risk lifestyle factors.
The Results are Supported by other Studies
These conclusions are also important if they are extrapolated to a global scale. The World Health Organization estimates that 17.3 million people died from cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in 2008, representing 30% of all deaths. Of these deaths 7.3 million resulted from coronary heart disease and 6.2 million from stroke. By 2030 the estimates of CVD are projected to rise to 23.6 million deaths due to expanding global populations and demographic profiles.
Interestingly another major study completed in 2016 published in the European Journal of Epidemiology also supported the findings in this new study. This study called the CHANCES study — CHANCES is the Consortium on Health and Ageing: Network of Cohorts in Europe – also suggested that there are sizeable benefits in life expectancy when healthy behaviour is assumed. They concluded that remaining a non-smoker yielded the greatest extra years in overall life expectancy, when compared to the effects of routinely taking physical activity, being overweight but not obese, and drinking in moderation.
