If you’re looking to save money on healthcare, prevention is about the best insurance you can get. Yet as we’ve noted before, far too many of us fail to engage in more than a few of the most basic healthful habits, namely
- Not smoking.
- Exercising regularly.
- Drinking in moderation (or not at all).
- Maintaining a healthy body weight.
- Getting enough sleep.
Yet new research in Circulation offers some good reason why the extra effort to follow them all may be worth it.
According to the study, following all five habits may add more than a decade to your life span – and healthier years, at that. By age 50, women had gained 14 years on average, while men gained just over 12.
To determine this, the authors analyzed data from a pair of major ongoing studies of diet, lifestyle, and health: the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. They combined this with NHANES data, as well as mortality data from the CDC, focusing on how health behaviors affected longevity.
Compared with those who didn’t follow any of the habits, those who followed all five were 74% less likely to die from any cause during the decades studied. They were 65% less likely to die from cancer and 82% less likely to die of cardiovascular disease.
“Quantifying the association between healthy lifestyle factors and longer life expectancy is important not only for individual behavioral changes but also for health communicators and policy makers,” said study author Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD, who chairs the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “It is critical to put prevention first. Prevention, through diet and lifestyle modifications, has enormous benefits in terms of reducing occurrence of chronic diseases, improving life expectancy as shown in this study, and reducing health-care costs.”
And as we noted before, those behaviors are the bare minimum of what makes for a healthy lifestyle. There’s so much more you can do to truly optimize your well-being, such as incorporating other keys of Radiant Health – practicing self-care, for instance, or practicing gratitude or reducing stress.
Then there are the complements to those habits, such as Bioidentical Hormone Replacement, which can help men and women alike restore endocrine harmony. Or ozone therapy to support robust immune function, stimulate mitochondrial function, and more. Or IV drip therapies to help with things such as detox, energy, mental clarity, and immune function. Or genetic testing that would allow us to truly personalize your nutrition and wellness plan so your body can make and do the most with the good foods you give it?
These are just a sample of the supports we offer in our West LA integrative clinic.
Most people think of “the doctor” as someone you only see when something goes wrong, when something needs to be fixed. But an integrative approach goes beyond that as you – as patient – take an active role in your health and well-being, working cooperatively with a knowledgeable physician who can help you make the best choices for you.
We start with prevention. We focus on longevity and quality of life. We help people heal from health problems, as well, of course. But we’re also here to help you achieve the level of health you want and deserve in creating your own best life.