Healthy life cuts risk in half
September 17th 2008
A study from Harvard University published in the online version of the British Medical Journal found that living a healthy lifestyle can cut by half a woman’s risk of dying prematurely from cancer or heart disease.
The deaths could be avoided if women never smoked, watched their weight, exercised and ate a healthy diet.The study looked at the health, diet and lifestyle of almost 80,000 women between 1980 and 2004. Over that time almost 9,000 women died, nearly 80 per cent of them from cancer or heart disease. There searchers estimated that 55 per cent of those deaths could have been avoided if the women had maintained a healthy lifestyle. Smoking contributed to 28 per cent of avoidable deaths, lack of exercise accounted for 17 percent and a poor diet for 13 per cent.
(Telegraph, p14; Express p3)
Below are related links for this story (they will open in a new window).