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Healthy Life Style without Smoking

Published on October 6, 2008 3:18 AM

According to a study, women may cut their risk of premature death from cancer and heart disease if they will have a healthy lifestyle.

Researchers at Harvard University reported that a healthy life stile is consisting of eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy weight and not smoking. Dr. Rob van Dam and his team from the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital estimated 55 percent of deaths could have been avoided if the women: never smoked, exercised a minimum of 30 minutes a day of at least moderate intensity, ate a healthy diet low in red meat and Trans fats, kept their weight in check.

The study looked at 80,000 women who were aged 34 to 59 years old. The participants were asked about their diet, physical activity, alcohol consumption, weight, smoking and disease history. According to this study researchers found that even modest differences in lifestyle can have a substantial impact on reducing mortality.

The researchers estimated that 14 percent of the deaths were from being overweight, 17 percent were due to lack of physical activity and 13 percent to not eating a healthy diet. Not drinking a light to moderate amount of alcohol played the smallest role, accounting for 7 percent of deaths. They reported that smoking was the biggest single cause of premature deaths, and the team estimated that 28 percent of the deaths could have been avoided if women had never smoked.

The findings show once again that people have to eradicate smoking and to exercise regularly and to eat healthily if they want to live more.