BMJ: These healthy lifestyles can extend life expectancy by 5 years and prevent Alzheimer's disease

Preventing Alzheimer's disease through lifestyle changes has attracted considerable attention in recent years, with growing evidence that a healthy lifestyle can help slow cognitive decline and may reduce the risk of
Alzheimer's disease.
In addition, a healthy lifestyle may also increase life expectancy
.

Recently, researchers from Rush University Medical Center published a research paper
in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) entitled: Healthy lifestyle and life expectancy with and without Alzheimer's dementia: population based cohort study.

The study showed that people aged 65 and older with a healthy lifestyle lived longer than their peers without a healthy lifestyle, specifically, a healthy lifestyle increased women's life expectancy by 3.
1 years, men lived 5.
7 years, and kept their brains sharp, significantly reducing the risk of
Alzheimer's disease.

In this study, participants were considered to have a healthy lifestyle
if they practiced at least four of the following five lifestyle habits.

Adhere to the MIND diet (a combination of the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet, eating more leafy greens, nuts, legumes, whole grains, fish and poultry, cooking foods with olive oil, and limiting foods such as red meat, butter, cheese, fried foods, fast food, etc.
);

Maintain cognitive activities such as reading and puzzles;

exercise for at least 150 minutes per week;

Non-smoking;

Limit alcohol consumption (no more than 15 grams of alcohol per day for women and 30 grams per day for men);

Klodian Dhana, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging at Rush University Medical Center, said the study comprehensively assessed these lifestyles as they may have a synergistic effect
on dementia risk.
Researchers at Rush University have previously shown that the MIND diet is associated
with slower cognitive decline and a lower risk of dementia.
The MIND diet emphasizes eating more leafy greens, nuts, legumes, whole grains, fish and poultry, cooking foods with olive oil, and limiting foods such as red meat, butter, cheese, fried foods, fast food
, etc.

The latest study builds on an ongoing Chicago Health and Aging Program (CHAP) that has previously demonstrated that adhering to a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease by 60 percent
.

This latest study shows that for women, the remaining life expectancy of women over 65 years old who have 4 or 5 of the above healthy lifestyles is 24.
2 years, which is 3.
1 years more than the remaining life expectancy of women over 65 years old with only 0 or 1 healthy lifestyle (21.
1 years
).
In addition, women over 65 years of age who have 4 or 5 healthy lifestyles mentioned above have a 10.
8% risk of Alzheimer's disease in the remainder of their life expectancy, compared with 19.
3%
for women over 65 years of age who have only 0 or 1 healthy lifestyle.

For men, the remaining life expectancy of men over 65 years of age with 4 or 5 of the above healthy lifestyles is 23.
1 years, which is 5.
7 years more than the remaining life expectancy of men over 65 years
of age with only 0 or 1 healthy lifestyle.
In addition, men over 65 years of age who have all 4 or 5 of the above healthy lifestyles have a 6.
1% risk of Alzheimer's disease in the remainder of their life expectancy, compared with 12.
0%
for men over 65 years of age who have only 0 or 1 healthy lifestyle.

Overall, the study showed that healthy lifestyles such as healthy eating, reading, regular exercise, non-smoking, and limiting alcohol consumption were associated with longer life expectancy in both men and women and significantly reduced their risk of
Alzheimer's disease in the future.