Healthy habits add up to 10 disease-free years to your life, study reveals • Hacker News Board

Re: Healthy habits add up to 10 disease-free years to your life, study reveals

#61

Post by crazygringo » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

> 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.

Re: Healthy habits add up to 10 disease-free years to your life, study reveals

#62

Post by Bartweiss » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

izzydata wrote: post #11

_Microft wrote: post #2

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.

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?

The study actually does show small positive effects to alcohol, but it's also trying to differentiate alcohol (minimal impact at low doses) from smoking (strong and strictly negative impact at all doses). You can see the study's alcohol results by dose here: https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/368/bmj.l6669/F2.large.jpg

From the study text:

> We observed a relatively small difference in life expectancies across different levels of alcohol consumption compared with other individual lifestyle factors. The cardiovascular benefits of moderate alcohol consumption have been consistently observed in large cohort studies, but alcohol consumption and risk of cancer showed a dose-response relation. Thus, current guidelines do not encourage a non-alcohol drinker to start drinking just for the benefit of preventing cardiovascular disease.

Female life expectancy peaks in the two lowest non-zero ranges, and disease-free expectancy at the second-lowest specifically; male life expectancy rises all the way to the top of "moderate" consumption, and disease-free peaks at the top two "moderate" doses. Presumably that's partly from men being larger and metabolizing alcohol faster, and partly from men being at higher risk of heart disease.

(There's probably a healthy-user bias here too, since there are conditions and medications which weren't checked for that would make people unable to tolerate alcohol, but that's less relevant when comparing different doses.)

Re: Healthy habits add up to 10 disease-free years to your life, study reveals

#63

Post by DanBC » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

lelf wrote: post #10

_Microft wrote: post #2

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.

Quite surprising for me too. Or rather, I don't understand the unit they mention. From the article linked: also collected alcoholic beverage consumption, including red and white wine separately (4 ounces, increasing to 5 ounces in 2006), beer (one glass, can, or bottle), and liquor (one drink or shot). We multiplied the amount of alcohol in grams per specified portion size by servings per day, determined the midpoint…

To find the units you multiply the serving size in litres by the number for the ABV.

So, a 250 ml glass of wine at 12% ABV is 0.25 * 12 = 3 units.

In the past when units were created wine was about 8% ABV, and a serving size was about 125 ml, which gives 0.125 * 8 = 1 unit per glass. When you see advice saying "one small glass of wine is about 1 unit" it's a bit misleading, because currently in the UK one small glass is going to be about 175 ml, and the ABV is going to be about 12%, which gives about 2 units per glass.

Re: Healthy habits add up to 10 disease-free years to your life, study reveals

#64

Post by platz » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #61

> 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…

Smoking causes other things besides the things that happen near the end of your life. It also affects your immune system; injuries take longer to heal. You don't have to be a pack-a-day person to experience these effects... i know!

Re: Healthy habits add up to 10 disease-free years to your life, study reveals

#65

Post by Zenst » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

low_common wrote: post #38

Does < 10 cigarettes a month count as smoking?

How big are the cigarettes, how deep do you inhale, how strong are the cigarettes you smoke, type of filter... So many factors.

But no simple X is safe and X+n is bad formular to appease any concerns. Everybody is different and all these Recommended Daily limits are all based on an average that none of us fully fit into.

I will say though that anything in moderation is the only rule of thumb that still carries, after all - stress does kill and if by not having a few cig's you increase your stress then you may find that your reducing your health even more due to the stress.

Moral being, be happy and if you have to question it, then you already know the answer that's best for you.

Re: Healthy habits add up to 10 disease-free years to your life, study reveals

#66

Post by DanBC » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #50

lelf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite surprising for me too. Or rather, I don't understand the unit they mention. From the article linked: also collected alcoholic beverage consumption, including red and white wine separately (4 ounces, increasing to 5 ounces in 2006), beer (one glass, can, or bottle), and liquor (one drink or shot). We multiplied the amount of alcohol in grams per specified portion size by servings per day, determined the midpoint…

This left me confused as well. This NHS article on alcohol abuse cleared it up, though: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alcohol-misuse/ > A unit of alcohol is 8g or 10ml of pure alcohol, which is about: > half a pint of lower to normal-strength lager/beer/cider (ABV 3.6%) > a single small shot measure (25ml) of spirits (25ml, ABV 40%) So a 12oz bottle (.75 pint) of 3.6% beer would be 1.5 NHS units. A bottle of 7.2% sto…

It is a lot. Recent advice (2016) cut the limits for men down to 14 units a week. The advice has always included recommendations to have some days drink free, and not to save the units up to drink more on one day.

Re: Healthy habits add up to 10 disease-free years to your life, study reveals

#67

Post by nkingsy » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

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

Re: Healthy habits add up to 10 disease-free years to your life, study reveals

#68

Post by Someone1234 » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

yodsanklai wrote: post #47

Someone1234 wrote: post #27

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…

> 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 t…

> Do you have data to back this up?

Yes e.g.:

Fasting: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/90/5/1138/4598070

Intermittent exercise: https://www.nature.com/articles/0800533

> 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.

I agree. Those are also examples of "easy wins." We need more of exactly that, maybe even with support (e.g. cataloguing your life and looking for such wins). IM and HIIT are only as good as their adherence rates, but anything that people will stick to is worth serious evaluation and promotion.

Re: Healthy habits add up to 10 disease-free years to your life, study reveals

#69

Post by throw_m239339 » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

low_common wrote: post #38

Does < 10 cigarettes a month count as smoking?

The problem with cigarettes is that it is incredibly difficult to stick to a very low count overtime. I smoked for 20 years, roughly 20 cigarettes every 2 days in the end. I managed to quit thanks to vaping.

Just don't start smoking, even small in quantities. It might not have significant drawbacks when you are young, but it absolutely will take a toll on your health eventually, just like drinking.

Re: Healthy habits add up to 10 disease-free years to your life, study reveals

#70

Post by mamon » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

alamortsubite wrote: post #55

scrollaway wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A glass of wine with food" is fairly rare culturally outside of Europe I believe; and even in Europe, it's uncommon in beer countries (UK, Belgium, …). "Drinking every night" = "[at least] 1 beer / night" in the minds of people who associate drinking with beer. There's no such thing as consuming a small glass of beer as it's not really a beverage you savour.

Small (8 oz./235 ml) servings of beer that are very much meant to be savored are very common in bars in the U.S.!

In Netherlands or Belgium 8-12 oz servings of beer compensate by it having higher ABV (8-10%), so the amount you consume is actually pretty much the same as with 16oz lager or pilsner.