Healthy lifestyle changes can delay risk of death and longevity
Healthy lifestyles are inversely associated with the risk of noncommunicable diseases, which are leading causes of death. However, few studies have used longitudinal data to assess the impact of changing lifestyle behaviours on all-cause and cancer mortality.
The current longitudinal study followed 308,500 participants from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort over an average of 17 years to evaluate how changes in lifestyle habits (smoking, consumption of alcoholic beverages, body mass index, and physical activity) impact all-cause and cancer mortality. The researchers found that the scores of a healthy lifestyle (HLI) either improved or remained stable (**) for almost 90% of the participants. Improved HLI scores were associated with 16% lower risk of all-cause and 13% lower risk of cancer mortality, while worsened HLI scores increased these risks by 26% and 19%, respectively.
The current study supports the findings of previous research showing that engaging in healthy lifestyle habits is associated with a decrease in all-cause and cancer mortality. The authors conclude that their study brings novel evidence on the benefits of adopting healthier lifestyle choices on all-cause and cancer mortality. Making healthier lifestyle changes in adulthood was related to lower all-cause and cancer mortality as well as a delayed risk of death. Conversely, worsening lifestyle behaviors were associated with increased rates of mortality and an earlier risk of death. They emphasize the importance of examining the joint effect of multiple lifestyle behaviors when assessing the risk of all-cause mortality.
(*) Each lifestyle behavior comprised of a score ranging from 0 (less healthy behavior) to 4 (more healthy behavior) with a total score ranging from 0 to 16. A more than one-unit increase in HLI score from baseline to follow-up was considered an improvement, a more than one-unit decrease was a worsened score and within a one-unit change was considered a stable score.
