When you think of the word ‘lifestyle’, you might think of barbecues at the beach, or evening drinks on the patio with the smell of jasmine in the air.

You tend to think about how you’ve chosen or hope to live. The making of life being good, and so forth.

Last week, we ran three pieces that looked at how lifestyle affects your health.

In one of these we reported that more than half of all heart diseases worldwide were linked to poor lifestyle.

In another, lifestyle factors were found to predict your chances of developing dementia.

The other advised that lifestyle factors can predict your chances of ending up in a nursing home sooner than later.

Bit of a downer, right? The good news is that you can cut these risks by changing your lifestyle. You might shrug that off. You might think that giving up all your bad habits deserves a bigger reward.

How about this?

What about living for an additional 24 years?

A large new study found that by adopting eight lifestyle habits at the age of 40, hey presto: A much longer lifespan could be yours.

More to the point, those extra years will more likely be healthy years. After all, a slow ride into the sunset is more glorious when you’re able to sit tall in the saddle. And not keep falling off the damn horse, so to speak.

The more healthy habits you adopt, the longer your possible lifespan. Graph: US VA

The eight lifestyle habits will come as no great surprise.

The researchers have ranked them in order of greatest impact:

• Being physically active
• Being free from opioid addiction
• Not smoking
• Managing stress
• Having a good diet
• Not regularly binge drinking
• Having good sleep hygiene
• Having positive social relationships.

Overall, the study found that “low physical activity, opioid use, and smoking had the biggest impact on lifespan”.

These factors were associated with a 30 to 45 per cent higher risk of death during the study period.

Stress, binge drinking, poor diet, and poor sleep hygiene were each associated with a 20 per cent increase in the risk of death.

A lack of positive social relationships was associated with a 5 per cent  increased risk of death.

Men who adopt all eight healthy habits by age 40 “would be predicted to live an average of 24 years longer than men with none of these habits”.

For women, the benefit would be a little lower: They are predicted to live an average 21 years longer than women with none of these habits.

Way past 40 already? No worries

Don’t fret if you’re already past 40.

The researchers say that if you start making changes at 50, and adopt all eight habits, you could extend your life by about 21 years for men.

Age 60, you could on average increase your lifespan by 18 years.

Lead study author Xuan-Mai Nguyen, a health science specialist for the Million Veteran Program at the VA Boston Healthcare System, told CNN: “There’s a 20-year period in which you can make these changes, whether you do it gradually or all at once.“

She said the research team “did an analysis to see if we eliminated people with type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, stroke, cancer and the like, does it change the outcome?”

And it didn’t, she said.

The point being: If you suffer with chronic diseases, “making changes does still help”.

What was the study?

According to a statement from the American Society for Nutrition (ASN), scientists used data from medical records and questionnaires collected between 2011 and 2019 from about 720,000 people enrolled in the US Veterans Affairs Million Veteran Program.

The Million Veteran Program is a national research program looking at how genes, lifestyle, military experiences, and exposures affect health and wellness in veterans.

The analysis included data from adults aged 40 to 99 and included 33,375 deaths during follow-up.

In the ASN statement, Dr Xuan-Mai Nguyen said: “We were really surprised by just how much could be gained with the adoption of one, two, three, or all eight lifestyle factors,” she said.

“Our research findings suggest that adopting a healthy lifestyle is important for both public health and personal wellness.

“The earlier the better, but even if you only make a small change in your 40s, 50s or 60s, it still is beneficial.”

The findings were presented at NUTRITION 2023, the flagship annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition held in Boston.