Healthy lifestile can increase life expectancy in people with multiple chronic diseases

If a person leads a healthy lifestyle, he can add an average of seven years to his lifespan, even if he suffers from several chronic diseases - This is conclusion scientists from the University of Leicester (UK) have came to. They published their article in the journal PLOS Medicine.

A healthy lifestyle is associated with high longevity, but before that it was not clear whether such a dependency still exists for those who are diagnosed with several chronic diseases at once.

The researchers analyzed data from 480,940 people whose average age was 58 years. They examined the diseases reported by patients and the main lifestyle factors that increase the risk of death. Scientists identified a total of 36 chronic diseases and four factors: physical activity, nutrition, smoking, and alcohol consumption.

After making the calculations, the authors concluded that even if there are many chronic diseases, men have a chance to extend their lives by an average of 6.3 years if they start to lead a healthy lifestyle. As for women, under such conditions they have a chance to add even more - 7.6 years. And the greatest advantage in survival was due to lack of smoking nowadays.

Dr. Yogini Chudasama, the lead author of the study, says, "We found that a healthy lifestyle, in particular abstinence from smoking, increased life expectancy by as much as seven years. And that's regardless of related diseases.

These findings are important for public health because they show that it's never too late to make important lifestyle changes.

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