Researchers have found that keeping to a healthy lifestyle is strongly linked to a reduced risk of death.
Dr Rob van Dam and his team at Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA, evaluated the impact of several lifestyle factors on mortality in 77,782 women aged 34 to 59 years.
The women were free from heart disease and cancer in 1980, and were followed for 24 years. Five lifestyle factors were studied – cigarette smoking, being overweight, taking physical activity, alcohol intake, and diet quality.
During this time there were 8,882 deaths, including 1,790 from heart disease and 4,527 from cancer.
On the website of the British Medical Journal, the team report that each of the lifestyle factors “independently and significantly predicted mortality”. Women who smoked, were overweight, took little physical activity, had a high alcohol intake and low diet quality were 3.26 times more likely to die from cancer than those with none of these risk factors. They were 8.17 times more likely to die from heart disease, and overall, 4.31 times more likely to die from any illness.
Among the deaths, 28 per cent were estimated to be caused by smoking, and 55 per cent from the combination of all five risk factors. However, alcohol intake did not appear to be linked to mortality.
The team conclude: “These results indicate that adherence to lifestyle guidelines is associated with markedly lower mortality in middle aged women. Both efforts to eradicate cigarette smoking and those to stimulate regular physical activity and a healthy diet should be intensified.”
van Dam, R. M. et al. Combined impact of lifestyle factors on mortality: a prospective cohort study in US women. The British Medical Journal, 2008;337:a1440.
Leave a Reply