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Healthy
Habits Add Years To Life Span
By
Amy Norton
NEW YORK (Reuters
Health) - Showing that clean living may the key to longevity,
researchers have found that Seventh-Day Adventists have significantly
longer-than-average life expectancies. They ascribe this longevity
to church members' high rates of vegetarianism and regular exercise
and virtually non-existent rates of smoking.
In a study
comparing California Adventists with Californians who were not
members of the religion, researchers at Loma Linda University
found that Adventists' life expectancies surpassed those of the
general population. Male Adventists had a gain of more than 7
years over other men, while female Adventists had a life expectancy
nearly 4.5 years longer than that of other women.
``The number
of years is really quite striking,'' lead researcher Dr. Gary
E. Fraser said in an interview with Reuters Health. He noted that
Adventists have ``always focused on health as a virtue,'' and
these findings show they are perhaps the longest-lived group that
has ever been formally studied.
Fraser and
his colleague at the California university, David J. Shavlik,
report their findings in the July 9th issue of the Archives of
Internal Medicine.
In their research,
Fraser and Shavlik used data from a 12-year study of health and
lifestyle habits among more than 34,000 Seventh-Day Adventists
aged 30 and older. The investigators compared participants' mortality
rates at various ages with those of white individuals in the general
California population, and calculated life expectancies in the
two groups.
According
to the researchers, the expected ages of death among 30-year-old
Adventists was about 81 for men and 84 for women. Vegetarians,
who accounted for around 30% of Adventists, were expected to live
even longer--to age 83 for men, and nearly 86 for women.
Based on the
Adventists' lifestyle data--such as the fact that 40% exercised
vigorously for at least 15 minutes three times a week, and fewer
than 1% currently smoked--Fraser and Shavlik estimate that these
habits account for up to 10 years of life expectancy in this population.
``These results
strongly suggest that behavioral choices influence the expected
age at death by several years, even as much as a decade,'' they
write.
Although the
study did not include lifestyle information on the general California
population, Fraser said the Adventists' rate of vegetarianism
was significantly higher than that of the US population as a whole,
as was their rate of regular exercise. And the fact that current
smoking was virtually non-existent among Adventists was ``undoubtedly
a big factor'' in their longevity, he added.
The idea that
eating well, exercising and shunning cigarettes promotes health
is nothing new--experts continually hammer the message home. What
is new here, Fraser explained, is that clean living has been linked
to a longer life.
``As far as
I know,'' he said, ``there's never been a quantification of the
number of years one can expect to be added.''
If these findings
are confirmed in other studies, the ''implications for public
health are profound,'' according to Fraser and Shavlik. The evidence,
they write, suggests that Americans could add years to their lives
in short order if they make major lifestyle changes.
And while
most Americans may not want to forgo meat as so many Adventists
do, they also do not have to, Fraser noted.
Vegetarians,
he pointed out, typically eat higher-than-average amounts of fruits
and vegetables and get much of their protein from legumes and
low-fat dairy products. Emulating these habits could also put
meat eaters on the road to a longer life.
SOURCE:
Archives of Internal Medicine 2001;161:1645-1652.
Reference
Source 89
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