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If you’re turning 50 and think it’s too late to change your ways — recent research says otherwise, even as it warns of classic health pitfalls that can lead you to an early grave.
A recent study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that five common risk factors for heart disease could slash your life expectancy by more than a decade.
Those risk factors are high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes and smoking.
“These five factors account for approximately 50% of the global burden of cardiovascular diseases,” said Dr. Christina Magnussen, deputy director of the Department of Cardiology at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany.
“Our central question was how many additional years of life are possible if these factors are absent or modified in middle age.”
Their results, based on data from over 2 million people in 39 countries, are sobering — men with all five risk factors had their lives shortened by nearly 12 years, and women by 14.5 years, compared to those with none.
Without the five risk factors, men had a 68% chance of dying before age 90 — which isn’t exactly low — but with all five, the risk shot up to 94%. For women, the jump was from 53% to 88%.
But there’s good news: the researchers found that managing all five could tack five extra years onto your lifespan, even if you don’t change your ways until your mid-50s.
In keeping with previous research, smoking and high blood pressure were found to be the worst offenders when it comes to heart disease.
Quitting smoking around age 55 added 2.1 years of life for women and 2.4 years for men.
Lowering high blood pressure at the same age delayed heart trouble by 2.4 years for women and 1.2 years for men.
“Our findings call for targeted interventions addressing specific risk factors, particularly during the critical middle-aged decade. Hypertension and smoking should be the primary focus of primary prevention,” said Magnussen.
Drop those two? You’re on your way to extra innings. Tackle them all? You’re playing the long game.
“The study shows that even at around age 50, individuals can make substantial changes to their lifestyle or prevention strategies on a personal level to significantly influence their life expectancy,” said Holger Thiele, director of the Heart Center Leipzig in Germany.
