Before you dismiss this study on the benefits of being healthy as wasted effort... consider this. Researchers spend lots of time studying what makes us sick, not what keeps us healthy, until now. A new study finds that healthy behaviors - eating right and exercising for example - bring down the risk of an early death by as much as 76%.
It might be common sense according to researchers but that doesn't mean it's common practice for as many as it should be. We all know what brings up the risk of heart disease, and if you can do things that delay (or prevent) that, you lower your risk over the long term, and thus live longer and healthier.
The team relied on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES for short). They used this information to examine seven aspects of healthy living in almost 45,000 adults over 20 years old between the years 1988 and 2010.
The 7 healthy living measures included:
- not smoking
- being active
- healthy blood pressure
- healthy blood sugar
- healthy cholesterol levels
- balanced diet
- normal weight
It might be common sense according to researchers but that doesn't mean it's common practice for as many as it should be. We all know what brings up the risk of heart disease, and if you can do things that delay (or prevent) that, you lower your risk over the long term, and thus live longer and healthier.
The team relied on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES for short). They used this information to examine seven aspects of healthy living in almost 45,000 adults over 20 years old between the years 1988 and 2010.
The 7 healthy living measures included:
- not smoking
- being active
- healthy blood pressure
- healthy blood sugar
- healthy cholesterol levels
- balanced diet
- normal weight