The Magic Formula
Today, Kristen brought this article to my attention, and it’s good news for those of us who believe in trying to be healthy at every size.
Taking exercise, not drinking too much alcohol, eating enough fruit and vegetables and not smoking can add up to 14 years to your life, a study says…The findings held true regardless of how overweight or poor [subjects] were…
“And we also found that social class and BMI – body mass index – really did not have a role to play. It means a large proportion of the population really could feel health benefits through moderate changes.”
So there you have it. Don’t smoke, drink 1-14 drinks per week, exercise for 30 minutes a day, and eat five servings of fruits and veggies per day. And it applies to fat people too! The article doesn’t define exercise, but I’m hoping that the walking I do to and from work at least partly qualifies. Because I’m all set on the other three! How about you?
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Food, Health, International, Science
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This is one of the few scientific papers available to the general public at large, so if anyone wants to read the actual study, you can download it here: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050012&ct=1
Unfortunately, it appears that they did not consider walking as exercise–they define it as “cycling and other physical activity such as swimming or jogging,” but every little bit probably helps!
“exercise” is term currently being debunked on several studies. They found that defining exercise as 30 minutes of focused activity during “free time” was too narrow a defination. People working strenuous jobs were not being defined as getting enough “exercise” since they might not have the free time to do it or the physical demands of work make free time exercise ridiculous.
Yeah! I’ve got all of those down…except I only exercise 5 times a week. Being at the gym every day of the week is for suckers! (Or something like that!) :)
The walking is probably enough, even though it was defined differently for this study. One of Gina Kolata’s *other* great books, Ultimate Fitness, talks about training effects and the impact of exercise on health (among other things) and concluded (to her surprise) that 20 minutes a few times a week was enough to reap health benefits.
According to that study I’m generally in pretty good shape, except apparently I don’t drink enough. Who knew?
DivaJean, in this study, they also counted people who had physically demanding jobs as being “active.”
The alcohol thing is kind of interesting. It is in line with what other studies have found, but U.S. public health authorities have been wary about recommending that people drink, because while it seems to be protective against heart disease, it can also raise your risk of cancer and alcohol abuse problems. And while this study didn’t address the subject, it seems that your drinking pattern is very important for your overall health. Basically, having one drink every day is probably pretty good for you, but having seven drinks one night a week is probably pretty bad for you.
Very good point La Wade — a glass of red wine a night is great for many people, but not for me. It would almost immediately turn to. . .well. . . not a pretty picture.
What a refreshing article!
I’m good all around. Well, ok, so I don’t exercise EVERY day. But I move. Moving is good. :)
Great googlie mooglie – I think I passed over the relevant numbers yesterday. But 1-14 drinks a week sounds like a ton to me! Jeepers!
Wa hoo — I exercise daily, never drink, have never smoked, and eat lots of fruits and veggies! Hmmm…I wonder if breathing in my parents’ second hand smoke for 18 years counts against me?
Yeah, I sent Mo the article with a certain degree of smugness, because I feel all saintly reading that article. And am evidently going to live to be an old, old lady.
If you have one or two glasses of wine with dinner, that could easily be 14 alcohol units a week… doesn’t sound like a lot to me, even though I don’t drink that much myself (probably average about two units a week).
The official line in the UK at the moment seems to be that never drinking may be slightly worse for you than drinking moderately. But did you know that if you’re a woman, don’t drink all week and then have three pints on Saturday… that’s binge drinking? It’s not so much the total quantity you drank that’s a health risk: it’s suddenly hitting your system with quantities of alcohol that it’s not accustomed to.
I believe the article said that one unit was about 1/2 a glass of wine, so that 14 units was 7 glasses of wine.
“A unit of alcohol (approximately 8 g) was defined as a half pint of beer, cider, or lager; a glass of wine; a single unit of spirits (whisky, gin, brandy, or vodka); or a glass of sherry, port, vermouth, or liqueurs. Total alcohol consumption was estimated as the total units of drinks consumed in a week. For these analyses, a moderate drinker was defined as someone who drank one or more units a week (that is, not a nondrinker), but not more than 14 units a week.”
My mistake–it’s 1/2 a PINT of beer or one glass of wine they refer to as one unit. I consider myself a light or moderate drinker, but 14 glasses of wine a week just sounds like a LOT to me!
Hmm. this seems way oversimplified to me. What about limiting saturated fats, refined carbs, and cholesterol rich foods? I mean, if you do all of that stuff, but then you also have, like, a cheesecake for dinner every night followed by a shot of heroin, I’d think something like that would negate the extra 14 years.
Add 14 years to what?
Arlene, sure, many other factors play into your lifespan. But this study was large enough (more than 25,000 people) that they could feel reasonably confident that they had a similar distribution of health risks in each group (except for the ones they were looking at, of course). This study was interesting because it seemed to show that the benefits of these health behaviors existed independent of other things that tend to shorten your lifespan, like obesity and low socioeconomic status. They didn’t look specifically at heroin and cheesecake addiction here, and I’m not sure that that particular affliction is widespread enough for that particular demographic to be reflected in the study results, but it may well be that cheesecake-heroin addicts who exercise, eat fruits and vegetables, etc. may live longer than those who don’t, though both likely have a shortened lifespan compared to non-junkies.
La Wade, damn you! you just made me laugh while drinking tea! :)