Quantifying the Difference Made by a Healthy Lifestyle in Later Life – Fight Aging!
In this study, researchers assessed the effects of a healthy lifestyle on mortality in older people suffering from chronic conditions of aging. As noted in similar studies, the effect size is larger than that achieved via readily available pharmaceutical strategies used to treat chronic illness, such as antihypertensive and lipid-lowering drugs. It is never too late to adjust one’s choices in order to reduce future health risks: regular exercise, lose excess weight, eat a better diet, and so forth.
Lifestyles are associated with all-cause mortality, yet limited research has explored the association in the elderly population with multimorbidity. We aim to investigate the impact of adopting a healthy lifestyle on reducing the risk of all-cause mortality in older individuals with or without multimorbidity in both China and UK. This prospective study included 29,451 and 173,503 older adults aged 60 and over from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) and UK Biobank. Lifestyles and multimorbidity were categorized into three groups, respectively. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate the Hazard Ratios (HRs) and dose-response for all-cause mortality in relation to lifestyles and multimorbidity, as well as the combination of both factors.
During a mean follow-up period of 4.7 years in CLHLS and 12.14 years in UK Biobank, we observed 21,540 and 20,720 deaths, respectively. For participants with two or more conditions, compared to those with an unhealthy lifestyle, adopting a healthy lifestyle was associated with a 27%-41% and 22%-42% reduction in mortality risk in the CLHLS and UK Biobank, respectively; Similarly, for individuals without multimorbidity, this reduction ranged from 18% to 41%. Among participants with multimorbidity, individuals with an unhealthy lifestyle had a higher mortality risk compared to those maintaining a healthy lifestyle, with HRs of 1.15 and 1.27 for two conditions, and 1.24 and 1.73 for three or more conditions in CLHLS and UK Biobank, respectively. Adherence to a healthy lifestyle can yield comparable mortality benefits for older individuals, regardless of their multimorbidity status. Furthermore, maintaining a healthy lifestyle can alleviate the mortality risks linked to a higher number of diseases.
