Live longer and better with healthy lifestyle choices
If you’re an older person, you might not want to live a lot longer, especially if you’re burdened with type 2 diabetes, heart disease, or something worse. But what if you could live better while living longer? And what if living better would mean that you’d spend more of your remaining years in vibrant health? If you’d live better during those extra years, you’d increase your Quality of Lifespan. The following examples show that embracing several healthy lifestyle choices (or avoiding unhealthy choices) can increase your Quality of Lifespan.
Until 2012, researchers didn’t know the number of years free of cardiovascular disease that middle-aged Americans who had strong cardiovascular health could expect to enjoy. Scientists at Northwestern University pooled data from five large longitudinal studies to find out. Cardiovascular risk factors included: 1) systolic and diastolic blood pressure more than 120 and 80 mm Hg, respectively, and 2) total cholesterol less than 180 mg/dL, and 3) diabetes, and 4) tobacco smoking. For both men and women, participants with optimal cardiovascular health (zero out of four risk factors) had substantially lower risk of cardiovascular disease during follow-up than participants with at least two of the four risk factors at ages 45, 55, and 65.
Here’s great news: Participants with no risk factors during follow-up lived up to 14 years longer free of total cardiovascular disease than participants with at least two risk factors. Read that again! At age 45, while the number of extra years of life that participants who no risk factors enjoyed increased, the number of life years after developing cardiovascular disease shrank compared to participants with two or more risk factors. If you adopt the healthy lifestyle choices of Keep Moving and Eat Better in your everyday life and if you don’t smoke, you’ll likely postpone cardiovascular disease until the last years of your life or avoid it altogether. In other words, make better lifestyle choices, live longer, and live better.
Better cardiovascular health in middle age increases Quality of Lifespan
The Chicago Heart Association Detection Project in Industry offered an opportunity to determine if favorable cardiovascular health in middle-age predicted lower risk of chronic disease later in life. Researchers at Northwestern University used data from 25,804 participants with an average of 44 years at baseline and who reached age 65 by 2010. Ratings of five risk factors (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, high body-mass index, and smoking) determined cardiovascular health in four categories: 1) favorable (lack of all risk factors, 2) no high risk factors but with one or more elevated-risk factors, 3) one high-risk factor, and 4) two or more high-risk factors. Participants with no risk factors at baseline lived almost four years longer and delayed the onset of all-cause chronic illness and cardiovascular illness by 4.5 and 6.9 years, respectively, compared with participants with two or more high-risk factors. Cardiovascular health in middle-age predicted lower risk of chronic disease up to 43 years later. This study supports the idea that avoiding cardiovascular risk factors (that is, better cardiovascular health through better lifestyle choices) can increase your Quality of Lifespan.
Here’s what five healthy factors can do for you
There’s little doubt that making healthy lifestyle choices leads to longer life for most people. But will making healthy choices lead to more life years free of chronic diseases? Researchers at Harvard tested this question with data from 73,196 women in the Nurses’ Health Study and 38,366 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Healthy lifestyle factors included: 1) being in the top 40 percent in the Alternative Healthy Eating Index, 2) not smoking, 3) at least 150 minutes of moderate or strenuous physical activity per week, 4) moderate alcohol intake (one alcoholic drink per day for women and two for men), and 5) moderate body-mass index (18.5-24.9). Life expectancy at age 50 increased as the number of healthy lifestyle factors increased from zero to four or five. For women and men, lifespan increased by 9.4 and 8.1 years, respectively.
Even better, life expectancy at age 50 free of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes also increased as the number of healthy lifestyle factors increased from zero to four or five. For women and men, the disease-free lifespan increased by 10.7 and 7.6 years, respectively. That is, the number of years of life free of these three chronic diseases increased more than did the total number of years of life. When considering each of the three chronic diseases separately, having four or five healthy factors increased the number of years free of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes by 8.3, 10.0, and 12.3 years, respectively for women. For men, the comparable numbers were 7.6, 6.0, and 8.6, respectively. Thus, the five healthy factors in this study had a greater effect on type 2 diabetes than either cancer or cardiovascular disease. Make more healthy choices and live longer and better
Avoid or postpone cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and dementia
The aging of the US population threatens the viability of the US medical care system if the expanding cadre of older Americans has poor health. A new study that used data from 143,199 participants with an average of 55 years at baseline in the UK Biobank Study provides a ray of hope. Researchers found that the degree of cardiovascular health affected the number of years past age 50 that participants lived free of major chronic diseases, namely cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and dementia. Cardiovascular health was evaluated according to the recent Life’s Essential 8 (LE8) developed by the American Heart Association. Totals of scores (ranging from 0-100) for the eight factors that comprised LE8 were categorized as low (less than 50), moderate (50-80), and high (more than 80). Women had higher average total scores than men.
Women with high total LE8 scores lived 6.0 more years after age 50 than women with low LE8 total scores. For men, the comparable increase was 4.8 years. Compared to women with low LE8 total scores, women with high scores had 9.4 more years free of major chronic diseases after age 50. For men, the comparable increase was 6.9 years. Thus, the number of life years without major chronic diseases increased more than the number of life years for women and men who had high cardiovascular health. Thus, middle-aged people who make healthy lifestyle choices a centerpiece of their lives can expect to increase their Quality of Lifespan—live longer, live better.
When’s the best time to start embracing healthy lifestyle choices in your daily life? Probably in your early 30s when the poor choices of your misbegotten youth begin to catch up with you. The second best time is now. I encourage you to start with one healthy lifestyle choice that you believe will improve your health, that you can enjoy doing, and that you believe you can accomplish. Do it now.
