Women: Living Longer, Looking Younger

By Nicky Morris


Have you thought about how small changes to your lifestyle could have big changes to your life?

We all know that being overweight, drinking too much, smoking and lack of exercise is going to have a bad affect on our health. And what affect do these factors have on our life expectancy?

It's a question that a research team from the National Institutes of Health and Human Services, and the National Cancer Institute have been looking to address by studying some of the factors that could have a bearing on the life expectancy of a woman, in either increasing or decreasing it.

The researchers said about the purpose of study that: "Our goal was to assess the relative strength and joint contributions of factors on the risk of death in postmenopausal women". They were specifically examining the factors that were affecting life expectancy, which could easily be adjusted by simple changes to diet or increasing exercise.

What contributes most to a long life?

It was a large study, made up of almost 18,000 women with an average of 68.

Looking at those factors that were considered high risk, and yet could be easily changed, the researchers highlighted: being overweight, with fat around the abdominal region, smoking, having high blood pressure and being unfit.

How do you go about reducing this risk factors?

The study showed that fortunately, a few simple changes to your lifestyle can have a major impact on your overall health and life expectancy.

Including:

Begin exercising. All forms of exercise are good for you, in moderation of course. And did you know that even just a 30 minute walk each day has been proven to lower blood pressure, reduce the progression of dementia and diabetes, reduces depression and anxiety, as well as reducing arthritic pain. It also helps you lose weight, which takes us to the next points.

Keeping a healthy weight. It was noted that it's important to lose that 'tummy fat', studies indicate that having fat round the waist increase the chances of heart disease.

Keeping your blood pressure normal, a natural way to maintaing a healthy blood pressure is by exercising, paying attention to your diet, for example reducing the amount of fats, salt and sugar in your food, and by not smoking.

Give up smoking. If you're a smoker, quitting is a major milestone in reducing the risks of cancers and heart disease.

From these four, smoking was highlighted as particularly detrimental to your health, causing 25% of the cancer deaths in women. The researchers went on to say: "The strong association of smoking with mortality is a critical reminder that smoking is the most important modifiable risk factor that physicians and society should address, even in older women." (Arch Intern Med 2006;2469-77)




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment

May one of these solutions help you to resolve your problems ?

Download Now For Free !