22/02/2021
To live long, you must adopt a healthy lifestyle
What is a healthy lifestyle, exactly?
According to Monique Tello, a researcher at Havard, there are five areas which have been shown to have a large impact on risk of premature death. Here are the healthy habits that may have tremendous positive impact on our wellbeing:
1. Healthy diet, which is based on intake of healthy foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, healthy fats, and omega-3 fatty acids, as compared to unhealthy foods like red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, trans fat, and sodium.
2. Healthy physical activity level, usually at least 30 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous activity daily.
3. Maintaining gealthy body weight, defined as a normal body mass index (BMI), which is between 18.5 and 24.9.
4. Avoiding smoking, well, there is no healthy amount of smoking. “Healthy” here can only mean never having to smoke.
5. Moderate alcohol intake, which was measured as between 5 and 15 grams per day for women, and 5 to 30 grams per day for men. Generally, one drink contains about 14 grams of pure alcohol. NB : A bottle of a 5.5% beer is over 30 grams.
Does a healthy lifestyle make a difference?
As it turns out, healthy habits make a big difference. According to this analysis, people who met criteria for all five habits enjoyed significantly, impressively longer lives than those who had none: 14 years for women and 12 years for men (if they had these habits at age 50). People who had none of these habits were far more likely to die prematurely from cancer or cardiovascular disease.
