Want to add 10 disease-free years to your life?

A recent study published in the British Medical Journal from a team of researchers, from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences quantified the benefits of healthy focused life habits on the probability of living a long disease-free life. In the prospective cohort study of 110,000 participants, followed up for approximately 30 years, the team assessed impact of five "low-risk" healthy habits – never smoking, a healthy body mass index (BMI) of 18 to 25, moderate to vigorous physical activity for at least 30 minutes per day moderate alcohol intake (approx 1-2 glasses of wine or beer) and a healthy diet was life expectancy free of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer, and how many more disease-free years people could expect from the age of 50.

The results showed that women leading a healthy lifestyle (adopting four or five healthy living factors) had a disease-free life expectancy at 50 of 34.4 more years, taking them to the age of 84 without diabetes, cancer or heart disease. This compared with just 23.7 more years of disease-free life expectancy from 50 for women who had not adopted any of the elements of a healthy lifestyle.

For men aged 50, those who adopted four or five healthy living factors could expect a further 31.1 years free from disease, compared with just 23.5 years for men who had no healthy lifestyle behaviours. Men who smoked more than 15 cigarettes a day, and men and women (with a BMI over 30, classified obese) had the worst chances of living a life free from disease.

The researchers in this study concluded that adherence to a low-risk lifestyle was associated with a longer life expectancy at age 50 free of major chronic diseases of approximately 7.6 years in men and 10 years in women compared with participants with no low-risk lifestyle factors.

Although the study doesn’t demonstrate a direct causative effect but reports association between these known risk factors and disease incidence, a strength of this study is the prospective long term follow-up design used and large sample size analysed. Additionally, the researchers conducted sensitivity analysis to ensure findings are reflective of risk factors up until the beginning of the interval when a participant was diagnosed with as having cancer, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes, as people often change their lifestyle after diagnosis of these diseases.

The findings add to other studies that report smoking, inactivity, poor diet quality, and heavy alcohol consumption contribute up to 60% of premature deaths and can decrease life expectancy by up to almost 18 years. This study adds to this showing that not only do these risk factors decrease life expectancy, they also decrease "health span” and quality of life while alive. This study is important in relation to optimising wellbeing long term and all these risk factors (smoking, physical inactivity, alcohol intake, body weight, and diet quality) are all potentially modifiable risk factors.

The full study can be accessed here.