It's clear now more than ever that living longer is heavily influenced by lifestyle choices like diet and exercise, but a recent unpublished study found that certain habits can add more than 20 additional years to your life.
The research, presented last month at the American Society for Nutrition's annual meeting, found that practicing eight healthy habits at age 40 was associated with an additional 24 years of life for men.
Women saw similar benefits from incorporating the practices in their lives at age 40, with 21 extra years added to their lives.
"We were really surprised by just how much could be gained with the adoption of one, two, three, or all eight lifestyle factors," said Xuan-Mai Nguyen, lead study author and health science specialist at the Department of Veterans Affairs, in a press release.
"The earlier the better, but even if you only make a small change in your 40s, 50s, or 60s, it still is beneficial."
8 habits that could add up to 24 years to your life
The eight habits, listed in order, starting with the highest impact on lifespan, include:
- Exercising
- Not having an addiction to opioids
- Avoiding smoking
- Managing your stress levels
- Adhering to a healthy diet
- Not binge drinking
- Prioritizing good sleep
- Maintaining positive social relationships
Even adding only one of the habits to their routine seemed to provide 4.5 or 3.5 more years of life for men and women, respectively. Just two of the behaviors added seven more years of life for men and eight extra years for women.
The observational study looked into the lifestyle choices of more than 700,000 U.S. military veterans from ages 40 to 99, who are all participants of a years-long study called the Million Veteran Program.
Lack of physical activity, opioid use and smoking had the biggest impacts on lifespan with an 30% to 45% increased risk of death, the study found.
"Stress, binge drinking, poor diet, and poor sleep hygiene were each associated with around a 20% increase in the risk of death, and a lack of positive social relationships was associated with a 5% increased risk of death," the release states.
Participants also saw increases when adding the healthy habits in their 50s and 60s, said Nguyen: "It is never too late to adopt a healthy lifestyle."
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