Keys to a Long Life: Exercise, Healthy Eating and a Tad of Alcohol

In ways they probably never imagined, our Moms were right in urging us to eat our vegetables, to exercise, to watch our waistlines, and not to smoke.

Researchers involved in two different studies have learned that these and one other lifestyle factor — moderate drinking, a behavior many temperate moms tend to downplay — not only lower heart disease risks but also may greatly enhance life expectancy.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Southern Denmark found that people who neither drink moderately nor exercised face a 30 to 49 percent higher risk of heart disease than those who have adopted both activities.

But the news gets even better, based on the findings of a British study. In a study involving 20,000 men and women, aged 45-79, University of Cambridge researchers determined those who followed these lifestyle practices — did not smoke, drank moderately, exercised and ate roughly five servings of fruits and vegetables a day — lived an average 14 years longer.

“I think the studies pretty much sum up the take-home message we’ve been stressing for years,” says Dr. Robert Keith, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System nutrition and health specialist and Auburn University professor of nutrition and food science. “But until now, there has never been a number in terms of the years people can add to their lives by adopting these lifestyle practices.”

“When you can do these things and live an average 14 years longer, I think this is pretty significant.”

Equally important, Keith says, is that these sorts of lifestyle factors can mean the difference between a healthy old age and one plagued by chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

“By adopting these practices you not only can live considerably longer but those years are probably going to be healthy,” he says. “Not only are you living longer but you’re also enjoying a better quality of life.”

Moderate drinking - a lifestyle factor that often is viewed with some reservation, especially in the historically abstinent American South - nonetheless appears to be a major contributor to decreasing the risk of cardiovascular disease. For example, the Danish study, which monitored the drinking and exercise habits of almost 12,000 men and women aged 20 or older between 1981 and 1983, determined that nondrinkers faced roughly a 30 percent higher risk of heart disease compared with moderate drinkers, whether or not they exercised.

Even so, teetotalers who exercised at least moderately managed to reduce their heart disease risk. The Danish study revealed that people who faced the lowest risk of death from any cause were physically active, moderate drinkers, while those at highest risk were physically inactive, heavy drinkers.

“Once you go beyond moderate drinking, you increase your chances of getting liver disease, cardiovascular disease and cancer,” Keith says.

Like many nutrition and health experts, Keith always has always treated the findings associated with moderate alcohol consumption with kid gloves.

“We always have trouble telling people who don’t drink to start drinking, because you don’t know what’s going to happen,” he says. “Maybe they can stand a drink or two or maybe they’re among those who could begin drinking heavily.”

“You tiptoe on a thin line,” he says. “A little bit is actually good, but if you go too far, it’s a downhill slide and it’s actually bad for you.”

Posted by Jim Langcuster at January 14, 2008 05:09 PM