5 healthy habits could extend life by a dozen years or more

You know that getting exercise, eating vegetables and quitting smoking are good for you. A new study shows just how good they are, in terms of the number of years they can add to your life.

American women who followed five “healthy lifestyle factors” lived about 14 years longer than women who followed none of them, according to a recent report in the journal Circulation. For men, the difference was about 12 years.

The factors identified in the study should come as no surprise to anyone: eating a nutritious diet, exercising at least 30 minutes a day, maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking, and drinking in moderation. The only surprise might be just how much these healthy choices can pay off.

The biggest benefits were seen by those who adhered to all five factors. But following any one of them was associated with extra years of life — and the more people followed, the longer they lived.

Researchers quantified these benefits by analyzing data on 78,865 women who enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study in 1976 and 44,354 men who joined the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study in 1980. By 2014, 42,167 of these men and women had died, including 10,689 who died of cardiovascular disease and 13,953 who died of cancer.

The risk of death was not evenly distributed among study participants. After accounting for factors like age, ethnicity, vitamin use and family history of certain diseases, the researchers saw a strong correlation between the lifestyle choices people made and their chances of being alive in 2014.

Men and women who were 5-for-5 on the lifestyle factors were 74 percent less likely to die during the study period than their counterparts who were 0-for-5. In particular, they were 65 percent less likely to die of cancer and 82 percent less likely to die of cardiovascular disease, the researchers found.

At age 50, the women who had the healthiest lifestyles could expect to live until age 93, 14 years longer than women who had the least healthy lifestyles. Among 50-year-old men, the healthiest could expect to live until age 87, 12 years longer than their least-healthy counterparts.

However, only 8 percent of American adults were meeting all five criteria for a healthy life as of 2006, the study authors noted. Being overweight or obese was the primary obstacle, they added. Altogether, about half of the premature cancer deaths and nearly three-quarters of the premature deaths due to cardiovascular disease could be blamed on a failure to maintain a healthy lifestyle, the researchers found.

“Prevention should be a top priority for national health policy, and preventive care should be an indispensable part of the health care system,” the researchers wrote.