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Want to add years to your life and life to your years. Read how healthy habits -- including refraining from smoking -- can help you do it!  To read the complete report, click on  Low Risk-Factor Profile and Long-term Cardiovascular and Noncardiovascular Mortality and Life Expectancy: Findings for 5 Large Cohorts of Young Adult and Middle-Aged Men and Women

Excerpts from Good Health Habits Can Extend Life

By Paul Recer, Associated Press [11/30/99]

What's a healthful lifestyle worth? Maybe six to 10 extra years of life, new research suggests.

Dramatic benefits are shown for people who don't smoke and who maintain low cholesterol and blood pressure levels.

The research, appearing Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found life-extending benefits for adults of all ages who have low heart disease risk factors, including not smoking cigarettes.

The results, he said, show that an American lifestyle that includes smoking, little exercise, obesity and poor diet "creates havoc in the cardiovascular system," while healthy habits can extend life substantially.

"Low-risk people in our country are rare birds," Stamler said at a news conference Tuesday. "That reflects our lifestyle."

The study, he said, marks the first time data have been collected for how low-risk people's health develops over a period of years.

The JAMA report analyzes health outcomes from a group of women and four groups of men who participated in two long-term studies. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 59. The

The researchers found that death from all causes and from cardiovascular disease was substantially reduced among those with low heart disease risk factors, defined as those who did not smoke and who had total cholesterol readings of 200 milligrams per deciliter or below and blood pressure readings less than or equal to 120 over 80. Less than 10 percent of the patients were in this "low-risk" category.

The risk of death from any cause was 50 percent to 55 percent lower for those in the "low-risk" category, the study found.

[Another study] found that the younger men in the "low-risk" category had a life expectancy 9+ years longer than other men in the group their same age. For men aged 40 to 59 years, life expectancy was extended by 6 years, the study found.

For women in the "low-risk" category, life was extended by 5.8 years.

"Lifestyle ... clearly influences who will fall into the low risk-factor group," said the study. It noted that since the 1960s, there has been a general health recommendation to decrease fat consumption, increase exercise, eat a diet balanced with fruits and vegetables, and to avoid smoking, excess alcohol and excess weight.