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It's Never Too Late to Get
Healthy
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Even starting in middle age reduces risk of heart disease and death,
study shows
By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay
Reporter
(HealthDay News) -- Adopting a heart-healthy
lifestyle makes a difference, even if the change doesn't come until
middle age.
In
fact, people who eat right and exercise more can substantially
reduce their risk for cardiovascular disease and death even if
they're in their 50s or 60s, researchers from the Medical University
of South Carolina report.
Consuming at least five fruits and vegetables daily, exercising at
least 2.5 hours per week, maintaining a healthy weight and not
smoking can lessen your chances of heart trouble by 35 percent, and
your risk of dying by 40 percent, compared to people with less
healthy lifestyles, according to the report in the July issue of the
American Journal of Medicine.
"We
call this the turning-back-the-clock study," said lead researcher
Dr. Dana E. King. "We want to emphasize that it's not too late
change, and the benefits of a healthy lifestyle don't accrue only to
people who have been doing this all along, but you can make changes
in your 50s and 60s and have a healthier longer life because of it."
King
said his team wanted to test if, once you reach middle age, it's too
late to adopt healthy habits and improve your health. "We found that
it's not too late," he said. "The benefits were dramatic and
immediate, even at age 65."
"Some people in middle age don't change, because they think the
damage is done," King said. "In fact, in this study, the chances of
dying or having a heart attack were reduced by a third after just
four years of living a healthy lifestyle."
In
the study, King's team collected data on 15,792 men and women aged
45 to 64 who took part in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities
Study.
The
researchers found that during four years of follow-up, the benefit
of switching to a healthy lifestyle after age 45 became apparent. In
addition, the benefit happened even with modest changes in health
habits.
Moreover, a healthy lifestyle was beneficial when compared with
people with three or fewer healthy habits, not just compared to
people with no healthy habits or only one of the healthy habits,
King's group found. While people with only three healthy habits had
lower mortality, they did not reduce their risk for cardiovascular
disease.
Unfortunately, only 8.5 percent of people in the study practiced
these four healthy behaviors, and only 8.4 percent adopted these
lifestyle changes after age 45.
King
noted that men, blacks, those without a college education, those
with lower income, or those with a history of high blood pressure or
diabetes were all less likely to adopt a healthy lifestyle past age
45.
One
expert noted that living healthy reduces your risk of other
diseases, too.
"Most experts agree that a health-promoting lifestyle -- eating
well, being active, not smoking -- can cut overall risk of heart
disease by 80 percent, cancer risk by 60 percent, and diabetes risk
by 90 percent," said Dr. David Katz, director of the Prevention
Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.
King
and his colleagues show that it may never be too late to start over,
Katz said. "Healthy living is the most powerful medicine of all. It
requires no prescription, and all of the side effects are
beneficial, too. It can, admittedly, be tough at times to get there
from here, but it's well worth it, and anytime is a good time to
start."
Another expert agreed.
"These are very encouraging results," said Alice H. Lichtenstein,
director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Lab and Gershoff Professor
of Nutrition at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts
University.
"They confirm that adopting heart-healthy behaviors, regardless of
age, can lead to clear benefits," Lichtenstein said. "Additionally,
by identifying individuals who are more likely to adopt
heart-healthy behaviors and who is not, more targeted programs to
help the more unlikely ones to change can be developed."
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