The 8 healthy habits to follow now to gain 6 years of life

Live as long as possible in good health, we all dream of it, right? Good news, scientists have established a list of eight healthy habits to follow on a daily basis which would allow you to have better heart health, which would contribute to slow down the aging process in order to gain years of life. Researchers said people with the best cardiovascular health were up to 6 years younger biologically (biological age refers to the rate at which organs age) relative to their actual age.

4 measures concern your lifestyle

And to have better cardiovascular health, researchers believe that we should adopt 4 lifestyle measures and act on 4 health markers:

1. Eat healthy (have a varied diet, rich in fruits, vegetables, cereals, good fats, little salt, little sugar, as little industrial and processed as possible…)
2. Be more active (global recommendations recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, or 75 minutes of sustained intensity per week)
3. NO SMOKING
4. Get enough sleep (recommendations recommend adults ages 26 to 64 get 7 to 9 hours of sleep)
5. Maintain a “healthy” weight (in a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9)
6. Control your cholesterol level (an LDL cholesterol level is considered normal when it is less than 1.6 g/l)
7. Control your blood sugar (normal fasting blood sugar should be between 0.70g/l and 1.10g/l)
8. Control your blood pressure (it should normally be between 115/75 and 120/80 mm Hg)

To achieve this list presented in November 2023 during the American Heart Association Scientific Conference (AHA) in Philadelphia, the scientists based themselves on data from more than 6,600 adults with an average age of 47. They analyzed their metabolism, the functioning of their organs and their level of inflammation, the progression of their phenotype (set of observable traits of an organism), while taking into account the social, economic and demographic factors of the participants.

As heart health improves, biological aging decreases

“We found that‘better cardiovascular health is associated with slowed biological aging, as measured by phenotypic age (or biological age). As heart health improves, biological aging decreases. For example, the actual average age of people who had good cardiovascular health was 41 years, when they had a biological age of 36 years (it’s as if they had “gained” 5 years of life, editor’s note) While people who had poor cardiovascular health had an actual age of 53 yearsbut their average biological age was 57 years old (it’s as if they had “lost” 4 years of life, editor’s note)”, explains Professor Nour Makarem, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and author principal of the study.