HHS HealthBeat (November 05, 2008)

Healthier, longer lives

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Living well really does seem to help people live longer. A researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health found that when he added up the effects when people didn’t follow healthy living practices.

Rob van Dam looked at data on premature death from chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer for nearly 80,000 women over 24 years. He checked whether the women reported doing things like eating right, being physically active, controlling weight, and not smoking.

Not doing those things showed up in the numbers.

``For this combination, we estimated that 55 percent of deaths in these women could have been avoided.’’  (5 seconds)

Smoking was the leading cause of premature death, but the other factors also had roles.

The study in BMJ-The British Medical Journal was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: November, 05 2008