Healthy lifestyle habits
Americans are far less healthy than they could be. Six out of every 10 Americans live with at least one chronic disease such as like heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes. These diseases are responsible for seven out of every 10 deaths in the United States — and yet they are largely preventable.
Researchers analyzed data from the CDC and two long-term population studies — the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study — and found that people who practiced five specific lifestyle habits dramatically reduced their risks of heart disease and cancer, compared with those who did none of these things.
Those lifestyle habits are:
- eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and unsaturated fatty acids, and low in red and processed meats, sugary drinks, trans fats, and sodium
- not smoking
- getting at least 3.5 hours of moderate-to vigorous physical activity each week
- drinking only moderate amounts of alcohol (no more than one drink per day for women, and two drinks or less per day for men)
- maintaining a healthy body weight and waist size
How effective are these measures? The researchers found that practicing all five habits from age 50 onward extended life by more than a decade compared with practicing none of them. Women who didn't adopt any of the habits lived on average to age 79, while those who did all five lived to 93. Similarly, men who did not practice these five habits lived to 75 on average, while those that did lived to nearly 88.
For more information on self-care practices, check out Self-Care , a Special Health Report from Harvard Medical School.
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