
Healthy habits add up to 10 disease-free years to your life, study reveals - open-source-ux
https://www.nhs.uk/news/lifestyle-and-exercise/healthy-habits-add-10-disease-free-years-your-life-study-reveals/
======
Someone1234
Living a long and healthy life is simple, but it isn't easy.

Which is to say almost everybody knows this, very few people live it. The
toughest battle isn't yet again telling people that 1+1=2, but rather figuring
out ways to make it more accessible to people (read: cheap, low time
commitment) and more sustainable as a lifestyle.

That's why ideas like HIIT[0] and IM[1] are interesting, not because they're
superior to getting doctor recommended levels of exercise and eating the
recommended nutrition but because people actually do them and stick to them,
and they're "less bad" then doing nothing.

"Perfect is the enemy of good" is the enemy of people's health too, and the
medical profession obsessed over what the Greek God tier lifestyle should look
like while ignoring "easy wins."

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
intensity_interval_traini...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
intensity_interval_training)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting)

~~~
yodsanklai
> because people actually do them and stick to them

Do you have data to back this up? I would have thought the exact opposite.
That HIIT and IM are techniques that people try after having seen a Ted talk
or something like that and don't make a life discipline out of them.

I also think plenty of people have some "common sense discipline" such as
cycling/walking to work, and not eating junk food and sodas, and trying to eat
fruits and vegetables. I feel this is very sustainable with a high ratio
benefit/cost.

~~~
cs02rm0
Appreciate this is a sample size of one, but IM has worked reasonably well for
me. I lost nearly 3 stone, my weight's up a little since then but I'm still
within a pound or two of my lowest fat mass over a year on.

All it really is to me is skipping breakfast and not snacking after my evening
meal. I only ever had breakfast because people told me it wasn't healthy to
skip it. Not so sure they were right now. I still pig out at lunch, dinner and
in between times.

[https://i.imgur.com/v0OGPVz.png](https://i.imgur.com/v0OGPVz.png)

~~~
LoveMortuus
How did you measure fat mass?

~~~
cs02rm0
The graph is from an app that comes with Withings smart scales and it's that
I've used. (So take the absolute values with a pinch of salt, but I suspect
they're in the right ballpark).

~~~
nradov
Withings smart scales are garbage for body fat measurement. I have the Body+
model and it fluctuates by ±4.3% day to day which is obviously not physically
possible. And even the highest readings are still about 1.5% lower than my
most recent DXA scan, which is far more accurate. (Yes I did try the scale's
"athlete mode" but that was even less accurate.)

In general electric measurements of body composition are just toys and not to
be relied upon.

------
_Microft
Surprising: one of the healthy habits mentioned is _drinking alcohol only in
moderation (defined in this study as just under 2 units for women and 4 units
for men daily)_. If I drank any alcohol on a daily basis, I would be scared
that it would go downhill from there. Habits are hard to change, so better do
not pick up bad ones at all. I'm convinced that just avoiding to do _stupid_
things is half the battle already.

~~~
izzydata
That one doesn't make any sense to me. Alcohol is basically poison. Perhaps
small amounts of it won't do any harm to you, but how could it possibly have a
positive effect on your health?

~~~
mrlala
Maybe it can have a positive affect on your mental health, in moderation?

Sharing a bottle of wine or champagne with my wife can be one of the most
enjoyable experiences to us.. going out to the pub having some beer with
family & friends is great.

An argument could be "you can have just as much fun doing something else", but
I don't know.. that's not really my experience. A moderate amount of drinking
usually makes things even more fun.

~~~
52-6F-62
In a business regard, people are usually perfectly understanding of a
cost/benefit analysis—but when it comes to something like alcohol you hear a
lot more absolutism. It surprises me a little bit.

------
mortenjorck
This is one of the best general-audience presentations of a study I've seen.
The "What kind of research was this?" section, with a quick explainer on
cohort studies, is by itself a lot more context than many media outlets offer,
and the other sections add up to an accessible primer on how this type of
study is performed, no scientific background required. Excellent science
communication from the NHS.

~~~
andrepd
NHS's online communication is almost always excellent.

------
DenisM
> drinking alcohol only in moderation (defined in this study as just under 2
> units for women and 4 units for men daily)

This part Of “stay healthy” advice has always puzzled me - it looks like full
blown alcoholism. Am I way off?

~~~
vkou
4 units is not 4 beers.

A single 7% beer bottle is 3 units.

9 beers a week is... Not _quite_ full-blown alcoholism. But I can see why the
study picked that as a threshold.

~~~
nothrabannosir
A 25ml (.8oz) shot of 40% proof is 1 unit. 4 of those per day is one hell of a
“healthy habit”.

I don’t know how large beer bottles are in the US, but 330ml (11.2oz) at 7% is
2.3 units.

(These are all European measurements, if that makes a difference. The NHS is
in the U.K., though, where 1 unit = 10 ml of pure alcohol).

------
giardini
Leaving sex out of the equation was an unfortunate oversight.

STDs cause a lot of grief and arguably as much or more damage than diet. AIDS
speaks for itself; herpes is implicated in Alzheimer's, heart disease and
other ailments and is just a general curse without the modern antivirals
(although many persons are naturally immune); gonorrhea and syphilis continue
to mutate to new drug-resistant forms.

~~~
newnewpdro
Not to mention having children, which if my experience is any indication is
the #1 reason parents use for being overweight and unfit, not having time
and/or energy to properly care for themselves now that they have kids.

~~~
mrr54
Ironically the best way to care for their kids is to set a good example by
eating and living healthily.

When was the last time you saw healthy parents with an obese child or obese
parents with a healthy child vs. how often you see healthy parents with
healthy children and obese parents with obese children?

~~~
smallcharleston
My mom was in extremely good shape with obese children. She was a homemaker
who did hours of exercise everyday. As such she could basically eat potato
chips and donuts and stay in great shape. For people who had to do things like
study or work, it didn’t work out.

~~~
mrr54
'Obese' implies 'unhealthy' but 'not obese' doesn't imply 'healthy'.

------
arjie
Does anyone have a link to the AHEI-2010 (the 2010 version of the Alternative
Healthy Eating Index)? I can't find it easily anywhere on the Internet.

------
jopsen
Hmm, the list of habits wasn't even that bad:

Don't smoke, drink little, keep a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9, exercise 30min per day,
have a diet in the top 40-percentile most healthy.

These seems like feasible habits. Sure if you're overweight, smoking or
drinking a lot changing the status isn't easy.

But you don't have to go vegan :)

~~~
odonnellryan
But go vegan. It's easy!

~~~
Bartweiss
I don't expect anyone to rehash the usual debates over this, but I have a
question I've never found answered convincingly...

How the heck do vegans eat high-protein diets? I don't mean "get enough
protein to avoid deficiency", there are lots of recipes for that. But
practically every vegan food I see described as "high protein" is well under
1/3 protein, which is a pretty unremarkable target if you want to build
muscle.

Eggs are a really easy way to fix that: you can eat a lot of them, you get a
pretty good range of micronutrients, and their macros are majority-protein so
you have "budget" for other foods. Is the vegan fix just getting really good
at cooking seitan with green vegetables? That's (with tempeh and tofu) the
only option I've found that's even in the right ballpark.

~~~
HuShifang
I think the keys are 1) don't be soy-phobic (eat tofu/tempeh, yes, but also
soy milk -- esp. the fortified, unsweetened kinds, they demolish most other
vegan milks nutritionally), 2) eat lots of pulses (so peanuts, lentils, beans,
peas, chickpeas, and the like), 3) eat nuts and nut butters, and 4) choose
high protein grains (e.g. oatmeal, whole wheat breads with seeds, whole grain
pastas, etc). It all adds up -- I actually found I was getting something like
50% over my recommended protein intake without thinking about it.

------
cjlars
The drink units are weird in this article. Most people (in the US) think of a
drink as closer to a 1.5oz 80 proof shot or 12oz of 5% abv beer, which works
out to 17.75ml of ethanol. The article defines a drink as 10ml of ethanol. So
the guidline for men would be on a bit over 2 budweisers per day.

~~~
detaro
It's explicitly not "a drink" that's defined as such, but a "unit of alcohol".
It's a standard measure in the UK for actual alcohol content in drinks.

------
nkingsy
The fact that it was health care professionals studied leads to the possible
confounding factor that people who had unhealthy lifestyles were very aware of
their choice to be unhealthy, meaning a possible placebo effect

~~~
6nf
If I actually live longer I don’t care if it was the placebo effect or not.

------
smugtrain
As an added benefit, being annoyingly healthy and so proud to announce your
superiority to the world will make you smarts smell so fine, you will capture
them in a sniffing glass, just to savor your good habits

------
tomp
> having a healthy diet score in the top 40% of people in the study

Correlation does not equal causation. It's obvious from this statement that
the relationship is not (necessarily) causal. Yeah "top 10% of the people in
study live longer" isn't really revolutionary.

~~~
alanbernstein
Yeah, that's a funny way for them to phrase it. I think the point is that you
don't need a nearly-unachievable "top 5% diet" to be a healthy person - you
just need to put in a little effort.

------
boyadjian
The first of the good habits is a good diet. The first medicine is food.

~~~
sn9
I'd actually say that the most impactful first habit is regular exercise.
Especially a few hours of strength training and a few hours of aerobic
exercise per week.

You can have a mediocre diet and still see huge health benefits. The opposite
is not true: a sedentary lifestyle will kill you and the last years will be
miserable with little in the way of physical autonomy.

------
low_common
Does < 10 cigarettes a month count as smoking?

~~~
seveneightn9ne
No, smoking is usually defined as smoking daily. But there's so few people
that smoke less-than-daily that they aren't usually included in these sort of
studies so it's harder to say what sort of effect it has.

~~~
thebean11
Seems pretty common in my experience, pretty much always "I only smoke when I
drink" folks.

------
leoplct
How can I have a top40% healthy diet score? w

~~~
npsimons
They didn't list this, but most things I've heard (eg, "How Not to Die" by Dr.
Michael Greger who reads a lot of studies) is to eat a whole food, plant based
diet. Might not have to give up meat completely, but the less you eat, the
healthier you will tend to be.

------
ruminasean
It's funny...I don't drink, never smoked, and don't eat meat or sugar, but I'm
not really hoping to live until some crazy age.

------
philip1209
Four drinks per day is "moderate"?

~~~
scarejunba
Four units = two pints of lager = less than half a bottle of red wine.

[https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-
alc...](https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-alcohol-
units/)

------
crazygringo
> _not smoking_

It's a pet peeve of mine, but I _really_ wish smoking weren't presented as a
binary choice in medicine and science.

I know a _lot_ of people who smoke socially but _only_ socially. They probably
have an average of somewhere between half to maybe five or six cigarettes a
_week_ \-- less than one a day, universally.

(For comparison, it's believed that addiction only starts to kick it at around
5 cigarettes per day.)

It would be nice if studies used granularity for smoking akin to that used for
alcohol.

~~~
zackmorris
Part of this is the cultural failure of western medicine to recognize all
drugs as sacraments. It's also a failure of justice systems to ban
discrimination based on drug use.

So for example, I wrote that I was a smoker once on an insurance application
(at the time as a 2-3 per day, 1 pack per week social smoker) and my insurance
went up almost $100 per month. But the risk of not being truthful would be
possible denied coverage down the road if I ever did develop respiratory
problems. So insurance effectively encourages lying as a financial incentive
(since the vast majority of people don't develop problems social smoking) as
well as a racket (a loophole that corporations can use to deny coverage).

But there's no way to talk about something like this in polite society,
because people effectively lose their minds. For example, I hate that my
parents smoke, and often wish that tobacco never existed. Yet I treasure my
memories of social smoking at parties, and consider counterculture stuff like
that to be part of my ethos.

IMHO the only solution is to be vigilant in denying corporate control over our
liberty and justice. Which is increasingly difficult in these times. I'm
hopeful that the 2020s will unwind some of the oppression that's happened
since 2001 though.

~~~
mrr54
I find this (seemingly uniquely American) idea that it's wrong to discriminate
in insurance quite strange. I'd love to understand your thought process behind
it.

The whole point of insurance, as I see it, is that you pay based on your risk.
Of course whether you smoke changes your risk of having health issues! Of
course whether you're rich or poor, or male or female, affects your health
risks.

For example, it's no surprise to me that my car insurance premiums are more
expensive than my sister's, even though she's a year younger than me. Young
men are much much more likely to be involved in car accidents than young
women. But I've seen many Americans claiming this should be considered illegal
discrimination. Isn't this discrimination the whole point of insurance?

The problem isn't that they factor in whether you smoke. The problem is that
it's binary. You should find an insurance company that will let you specify
how much you smoke. The insurance company should be delighted with that
information: it allows them to model your risk more accurately and offer you
more competitive prices!

This isn't 'corporate control over our liberty and justice' and it certainly
isn't 'oppression'.

~~~
zackmorris
While what you're saying has a truthful ring to it, I fundamentally disagree
with your hypothesis. The theory behind insurance is that everyone pays a flat
rate so that there is enough money in the pool to cover statistically rare
events. It works for fire, flood, life insurance, anything really. And the
great thing about it is that the premiums are generally substantially lower
than people expect. There's enough room there to charge enough for insurance
companies to make a profit and still have affordable premiums.

This has gone haywire in recent decades due to corruption. In their never-
ending quest for more profit, insurance company lobbyists have bribed
politicians to change the laws so that they can create new brackets. Now car
insurance costs more for young drivers. Now people in the south find they have
no flood insurance or that their coverage wasn't good enough to replace their
home or that there is so much red tape that they have to sue their own
insurance company to get paid. Or the company simply doesn't pay, and the US
government has to bail everyone out.

The fact that smoking is the single biggest discriminator in insurance
premiums after age is a huge red flag that corruption is afoot. Here are a few
things statistically more dangerous than smoking:

* Texting while driving

* Not eating right or exercising

* Working a blue collar job

Corruption just shifts costs onto the poor in the name of efficiency.

~~~
mrr54
> While what you're saying has a truthful ring to it, I fundamentally disagree
> with your hypothesis. The theory behind insurance is that everyone pays a
> flat rate so that there is enough money in the pool to cover statistically
> rare events. It works for fire, flood, life insurance, anything really. And
> the great thing about it is that the premiums are generally substantially
> lower than people expect. There's enough room there to charge enough for
> insurance companies to make a profit and still have affordable premiums.

The point is that you amortise your risk. You pay small affordable amounts
because that's more reliable than a small chance of having to pay
extraordinary amounts.

The point is not that everyone pays the same rate, or that people pay what
they can afford. If that's what you want, you introduce a tax and a government
program: government healthcare, government fire insurance, government flood
insurance, etc. Most places effectively have this at the edges: any large
scale event there will be significant government assistance, and insurance
ends up only having to cover small incidents.

Fire insurance should be more expensive in Queensland than in Oslo. Flood
insurance should be more expensive in New Orleans than in Qatar. Insurance is
amortisation of risk, _not_ a wealth redistribution service.

>This has gone haywire in recent decades due to corruption. In their never-
ending quest for more profit, insurance company lobbyists have bribed
politicians to change the laws so that they can create new brackets. Now car
insurance costs more for young drivers. Now people in the south find they have
no flood insurance or that their coverage wasn't good enough to replace their
home or that there is so much red tape that they have to sue their own
insurance company to get paid. Or the company simply doesn't pay, and the US
government has to bail everyone out.

What are you even talking about? You don't need a law change to be 'allowed'
to make premiums higher for younger drivers or people with houses that are
prone to flooding. The default situation is that you can provide insurance to
people at whatever price you feel like giving them, based on whatever factors
you have calculated affect their risk. It's a free market.

If you live in an area that's basically guaranteed to flood in the next 10
years, of course you're going to have difficulty getting flooding insurance!
They're basically guaranteed to lose money unless you're paying 20% of the
value of your house in premiums every year.

I suspect you literally don't understand the concept of risk.

>The fact that smoking is the single biggest discriminator in insurance
premiums after age is a huge red flag that corruption is afoot. Here are a few
things statistically more dangerous than smoking:

How do you measure whether someone texts while driving? How do you measure
whether someone gets enough exercise or has a healthy diet?

What do you even mean by 'corruption' anyway? This is how insurance works
_everywhere_ , in every country, every jurisdiction, universally. It's how
insurance works as a very basic concept. The entire point is that you pay
based on risk, and higher risk = higher premiums.

Working in a blue collar job _already_ is factored into health insurance
premiums. Go ask employers what their insurance premiums are for their
employees in the United States. Obviously places with significantly dangerous
jobs will have expensive health insurance premiums because that just makes
logical sense for the health insurers.

>Corruption just shifts costs onto the poor in the name of efficiency.

It literally makes no logical sense for this to happen. Insurance is a very
competitive market. If they are overcharging people relative to their actual
risk, then someone that can measure that risk more accurately and charge you
less while still making a reliable profit should exist.

And in fact that is exactly what happens.

~~~
zackmorris
I can't argue with any of your points specifically, in fact I agree with most
of them.

I wonder if what's happening in the US though is that nearly all markets with
inelastic demand curves have come to be dominated by a handful of companies
(duopolies). So if I need an operation that I simply must have, or health
insurance or internet service, I have a couple of companies to choose from
that both charge roughly the same price, which is usually quite a bit more
than what I'd like to pay.

The principle here is that markets with inelastic demand curves form natural
monopolies:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly)

But in the US, there has been no move to break up monopolies or transfer them
into the public sector as utilities (like for water and electricity) since the
Reagan era:

[https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/97...](https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199251902.001.0001/acprof-9780199251902-chapter-6)

So the controversy you see in the media here about whether to have single
payer healthcare, for example, stems from the fact that these natural
monopolies are run by private sector corporations which have formed rackets
within the government through the use of lobbying (a form of bribery). Their
disinformation and smear campaigns across the major media outlets (themselves
usually duopolies like CNN and Fox News) distract the populace so that basic
economic principles take a back seat to political ideology. This keeps
everyone divided in order to maintain the status quo of duopoly protection.

If the US were to move to public healthcare, the price would fall to a rate
base (a legally determined profit margin above base cost) which must be
determined through regulation since the free market can't find a fair price
between supplier and consumer since the price is inelastic and/or there as an
information or power imbalance which makes it a non-free market:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_base_(utility)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_base_\(utility\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_ratemaking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_ratemaking)

Looking to other countries as examples, this would lower the price to roughly
1/2 to 1/3 what it is now:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita)

All of this is why when I see smoking singled out on health insurance
applications, I tend to see corruption rather than market efficiency. Which is
outrageous, because my vote would be to move health insurance into the public
sector anyway. It feels like being kicked when I'm down.

I think what might be going on here is that you're thinking microeconomics
while I'm thinking macroeconomics, but we can both be right.

