Every year, more and more research is devoted to finding the key to living longer.
Researchers have learned many things already that are important for longer life. Among those many important factors, healthy living is very important if you want to increase longevity.
Most likely, you already have a good idea of what it means to live a healthy lifestyle. Living for good health consists of moderate exercise for 150 minutes per week, staying at healthy body weight, eating more fruits and vegetables, and not smoking or drinking much alcohol.
The way that healthy living increases your longevity is that it helps your body to avoid and defeat certain diseases in your younger and healthier years. It means that 50-year-old women can anticipate living healthy for another 10 years; men aged 50 can expect to be healthy for about another eight years. These numbers are compared to those that do not have a healthy lifestyle.
Research surveys have also revealed that the more of the above healthy lifestyle practices are followed, the longer that you can expect to live. People that followed four out of five of the above practices lived longer: women lived 34 years longer past 50, and men lived 31 years longer.
One study showed that the five aspects of a healthy lifestyle can independently reduce several health risks. They lower your risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and all risks in general.
Current techniques for determining how long someone might live are based on how quickly he or she can recover from an illness. It is called your physiological equilibrium. The process of aging occurs because of a slow loss of this equilibrium.
One method used to measure equilibrium is a test to measure how many red and white blood cells were in the bloodstream. A higher than normal count of white blood cells reveals the level of inflammation in the body, and the amount of red cells reveals whether that person would be more susceptible to cardiovascular disease or stroke, and mental degradation.
One of the largest factors that indicated an expected shorter life was when someone has excessive body weight for long periods. The study reported that people that are heavy from their childhood will live a much shorter life than those who are lean for most or all of their life.
The people with the lowest mortality rate were those that were the leanest – having a BMI of 22-23.
One of the proofs that healthy living can increase longevity is that – compared to nations of similar wealth – Americans do not live as long. The primary difference is the amount of exercise conducted weekly and the diet. Americans consume a lot of fast food – which is mostly unhealthy when eating it regularly or often.
Compared to other nations, Americans ranked 46th in expected average lifespan, with Hong Kong, Japan, Macao, and Switzerland being the top four countries with the longest average lifespan.
Exercise is also more common in other countries. People tend to enjoy the outdoors more, which gives them more fresh air, sunshine, and places to walk or bike. Regular exercise of even just an hour or less a week can add two years to your life.