Fourteen years. That’s how much longer you can expect to live, if you cultivate healthy habits — such as keeping your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar in check, avoiding tobacco, and doing everything you can to avoid diabetes (by eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise).
That’s the key finding of a new study by Northwestern Medicine scientists, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, who found people who have optimal heart health in middle age — free of cardiovascular disease — can expect to live significantly longer lives than those who have two or more risk factors for heart trouble.
"We found that many people develop cardiovascular disease as they live into old age, but those with optimal risk factor levels live disease-free longer," said lead researcher Dr. John T. Wilkins. "We need to do everything we can to maintain optimal risk factors so that we reduce the chances of developing cardiovascular disease and increase the chances that we'll live longer and healthier."
To reach their calculation, researchers examined data from five different studies that projected the risk of death from cardiovascular disease at ages 45, 55, 65, and 95 years of age.
Among their findings:
• Individuals with healthy lifestyles lived up to 14 years longer than individuals with at least two risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
• Men in middle age had lifetime risks of approximately 60 percent for developing cardiovascular disease.
• Women in middle age had lifetime risks of approximately 56 percent for developing cardiovascular disease.
© HealthDay