Small lifestyle changes to improve sleep, diet and exercise levels can make help people live a longer life, a study reveals. Experts led by the University of Sydney gathered data from more than 50,000 people taking part in the UK Biobank study, and tracked their health for eight years.
Overall they estimated that a “combined dose” of increasing sleep by five minutes per day, just two minutes more of increased moderate to vigorous physical activity and half an extra portion of vegetables could increase a person’s lifespan by one year for people with the worst sleep, lowest activity levels and poorest diets.
During the study period, there were a total of 2,400 deaths, almost 10,000 cases of heart disease diagnosed, and 3,000 cases of type 2 diabetes, 7,600 cancers, 1,500 cases of lung disease and 500 cases of dementia.
People who had the best sleep; exercised most and had the most healthy diets lived on average 9.35 years longer than those with the worst sleep, lowest activity levels and poorest diets.
And they spent more of their lives in good health, the research found.
The study highlighted that the combined relationship of sleep, physical activity and diet was more influential than the sum of the individual behaviours.
For example, for people with the unhealthiest sleep, physical activity and dietary habits to achieve one additional year of lifespan through sleep alone would require five times the amount of additional sleep per day (25 minutes) than if physical activity and diet also improved a small amount.
Moderate to vigorous physical activities include brisk walking or taking the stairs rather than using a lift.
Research lead Dr Nicholas Koemel, from the University of Sydney, said: “Sleep, physical activity and nutrition are all factors known to be linked to healthier lives, but they are usually studied in isolation.
“By investigating these factors in combination, we can see that even small tweaks have a significant cumulative impact over the long-term.”
The findings were published in eClinicalMedicine.
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