When seeing an older patient, we often hesitate to advice them to adopt healthier health habits. We think it is difficult to change lifestyles is difficult (true!) and changing late in life may not change anything. Two studies on the association of healthy habits and mortality challenges this thinking. In both studies, those who had more of the healthy habits are less likely to die during follow-up.
The list of healthy habits are different but overlap. One lists regular exercise, healthy diet, smoking avoidance, and weight maintenance. The other lists a Mediterranean diet, moderate alcohol use, physical activity and nonsmoking status.
The bottomline is: those who have more healthy habits live longer.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15383513
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23733562
