What can you do to enjoy life longer without chronic diseases?
A short time ago, a study was published that, based on a very large survey, investigated whether there are factors in the lifestyle of all of us that can delay the onset of a chronic disease or, conversely, push it forward in old age.
The figures for this analysis were based on questionnaires filled out by employees of the health care system in the USA; the data of about 73,000 women and 38,000 men were used for the evaluation.
The effects on 3 chronic diseases were studied, namely cancer, type II diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (diseases of the cardiovascular system, also called arteriosclerosis). What was the result? If you get a positive point in each of 4 out of the 5 behaviours listed below, you can delay the onset of a chronic disease, namely
Cancer: Women 8.3 years and men 6.0 years longer without cancer.
Cardiovascular diseases: Women 10.0 years and men 8.6 years longer without cardiovascular disease.
Type II diabetes: women 12.3 years and men 10.3 years longer without diabetes.
The figures were compared with the group that had less than 4 points on their account.
What behaviours were chosen for this?
- Nutrition
Values should be within the top 40% of the Alternative Healthy Eating Index*. This is equivalent to a healthy balanced diet. We have already pointed out what this means in several articles. Perhaps the keyword “Mediterranean Diet” will help you. - Smoking
Those who have never smoked are worthy of a plus, the others are not. - Moderate to high physical activity (at least 30 minutes daily)
- Moderate alcohol consumption (5-15 g/day for women, 5-30 g/day for men)
- Body mass index (18.5-24.9 kg/m2)
If you have a plus in 4 of the 5 possible points, you belong to the group that can expect to live longer without these three chronic diseases.
It should be noted that the survey was conducted among American citizens, whose diet differs from that of Europeans. In addition, the respondents belonged to the health care system and one can assume that this group eats better than the rest of the population. In this respect, even this numerically large amount of data is not entirely correct. But we are not engaged in nitpicking here, we just want to point out that we can protect ourselves from these diseases of civilisation with just a few changes in lifestyle.
We would like to make one comment at this point: For cardiovascular risks and the risk of type II diabetes, the additional, preventive intake of only 2 capsules of PPC (memphosan) daily reduces the risk considerably.
* The Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) is a special compilation of nutrition that relates to chronic diseases and has the values from 1-10 as a rating scale, see picture. This includes proportions of the daily diet of vegetables, fruits, fibre, meat, sugary drinks, omega – 3 fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, trans fats, alcohol and salt.
We will return to the topic of nutrition again and again in further articles and want to focus primarily on which diet is useful for the prevention of diseases of civilisation.
Further reading
You can find the study HERE.