Studies Affirm Value Of Healthy Lifestyle

“All that heart-healthy advice about eating the right foods, exercising and losing weight pay off in real life for both men and women, two new studies show. The reports, both originating at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and published in the July 22/29 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, focused on different aspects of cardiovascular risk in two large groups: the 83,882 women in the second Nurses' Health Study, and the 20,900 men in the Physicians' Health Study I. Both arrived at the same conclusion: Do the right things, and you get measurable benefits. ‘Previous studies have shown benefit from individual lifestyle factors,’ Djousse said. ‘We looked at all of these factors together.’ While the clear message of both studies is that ‘a healthy lifestyle prevents a number of illnesses,’ what is often overlooked is that the choice of a healthy lifestyle is not a purely individual decision, said Dr. Veronique L. Roger, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Mayo Clinic, who wrote an accompanying editorial. ‘There is a shared responsibility between the individual and the community,’ said Roger, who read off a dictionary definition of lifestyle as ‘a typical way of life of an individual, group or culture.’ ‘The reality is that society has engineered physical activity out of our lives,’ Roger said. ‘And it is difficult for me to tell someone in Nebraska to follow the Mediterranean diet, which is anchored in the culture of that society.’”


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