More Evidence Healthy Living Brings Long Life

“People who adopt four healthy behaviors -- never smoking, regular exercise, eating well and maintaining a healthy weight -- can dramatically reduce their likelihood for chronic disease and an early death, a new study confirms. On average, healthy living may cut your odds for heart disease, cancer and diabetes by about 80 percent, the researchers said. ‘We're talking about relatively straightforward behaviors that pretty much everyone knows about already,’ said study author Dr. Earl S. Ford, a medical officer with the U.S. Public Health Service and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ‘But there's unfortunately a gap between people realizing what's good for them and doing what they might want to do.’ ‘We're showing that for a very wide range of diseases -- not just one chronic disease, but many -- these few behaviors really do have a major impact on prevention,’ Ford said. He and his colleagues reported the findings in the Aug. 10/24 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.”

http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=629887