Wouldn’t You Like 10 More Years of Life?
Ok, we all know that smoking, high blood pressure and high serum cholesterol levels are likely to shave some years off your life, but – according to the BBC - University of Oxford researchers were able to come up with a pretty good estimate of how many.
And it ain’t just one or two, either. On average, it’s 10 – 15.
The UK study looked at more than 19,000 civil servants aged 40-69 and traced what happened to them 38 years later.
The Oxford study, in the British Medical Journal, said men with these three risk factors could expect a 10-year shorter life from 50 years of age.
…The researchers from the University of Oxford focused on smoking, high blood pressure and cholesterol because they are the main cardiovascular risk factors.
But when they broadened it out to look at all risk factors including obesity, diabetes and employment grade, they found a 15-year life expectancy difference between the 5% with the highest number of risk factors and the 5% who had the lowest number of risk factors.
I don’t know about you, but I could get a lot of living done in 10 – 15 years. If that’s not a good reason to quit smoking and get other risk factors in line, I don’t know what is.
Share
Makster on 25 Sep 2009 at 9:06 am #
It looks to me like some worthy steps to take to stick around a few more years. Cutting down the risk factors may seem hard, but well worth it.