Gezondere levensstijl halveert de kans op een vroegtijdige dood*
Uit een onderzoek onder 80.000 verpleegkundigen die ruim 20 jaar gevolgd werden blijkt zij die niet roken, regelmatig bewegen en gezond eten met weinig roodvlees en
transvetten 55% minder kans hebben op een vroegtijdige dood. Door niet te roken konden 28% van de rokers een vroegtijdige dood ontlopen. Roken was veruit het grootste risico op een vroegtijdige dood, het drinken van alcohol het kleinste risico.
Uit
een andere, kleine studie blijkt dat in drie maanden tijd door extra bewegen en
gezonde voeding de kans op doodgaan flink kan verminderen en men ouder kan
worden. De gezonde voeding bestond uit veel groenten en fruit, volkoren granen
en bonen en peulen. Het bewegen uit iedere dag een half uur wandelen. Na 3
maanden bleken de bloedwaarden van het enzym telomerase met 29% toegenomen. Telomerase herstelt het chromosoomeind, de zogenaamde telomeer. Het telomeer wordt bij elke celdeling
korter, maar door de werking van telomerase wordt het telomeer weer verlengd.
(Oude cellen hebben chromosomen met een korter telomeer dan jonge cellen.)
Healthy living cuts premature death risk in half
Women who heed common sense health messages about smoking, diet and exercise can cut their risk of premature death in half, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
Many studies look at the impact of just one lifestyle change on overall health, but researchers at Harvard University wanted to see the total impact of a healthy diet, regular exercise, a healthy weight and a lifetime without smoking.
Dr. Rob van Dam and a team from the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital followed 80,000 nurses for more than two decades.
The women kept detailed records of their diet, physical activity, alcohol consumption, weight, smoking and disease history. Over the study period, 8,882 of the women died, including 1,790 from heart disease and 4,527 from cancer.
Some 28 percent of these deaths could have been avoided if the women had never smoked, the researchers said.
And 55 percent of the deaths could have been avoided if the women had never smoked and exercised regularly, eaten a healthy diet low in red meat and trans-fats and maintained a healthy weight, they said.
Smoking played the biggest role in causing premature death, and alcohol consumption played the smallest, they said.
They found women who drank up to one drink a day had a lower risk of heart disease than those who abstained from alcohol.
"These findings underscore the importance of intensifying both efforts to eradicate cigarette smoking and those aimed at improving diet and physical activity," van Dam and colleagues wrote in the British Medical
Journal.
Healthy lifestyle raises beneficial enzyme: study
Sweeping lifestyle changes including a better diet and more exercise can raise the body's levels of an enzyme closely involved in controlling the aging process, U.S. researchers reported.
The small study involved 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer who underwent three months of lifestyle changes. They had blood levels of the enzyme telomerase 29 percent higher after these three months than when they began.
Telomerase fixes and lengthens parts of chromosomes known as telomeres that control longevity and are also important for maintenance of immune-system cells.
The research in the journal Lancet Oncology was led by Dr. Dean Ornish, head of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, and a well-known author advocating lifestyle changes to improve health.
The lifestyle changes included a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products, moderate exercise such as walking for half an hour a day, and an hour of daily stress management methods such as meditation.
"This is the first study showing that anything can increase telomerase. If it were a new drug that had been shown to do this, it would be a billion-dollar drug. But this is something that people can do for free," Ornish said in a telephone interview.
Shortening of telomeres is seen as an indicator of disease risk and premature death in some types of cancer, including breast, prostate, colon and lung cancer.
Previously published findings from the same group of men showed they experienced dramatic changes at the genetic level.
As expected, they lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and saw other health improvements.
They also had changes in activity in about 500 genes. The activity of disease-preventing genes increasing while some disease-promoting genes, including those involved in prostate cancer and breast cancer, shut down, the researchers
said. (November
2008)
