Adopting a healthy lifestyle is the key to managing chronic disease. A healthy lifestyle established before the onset of disease is the prophylactic medication for reducing the risk of, and preventing, a chronic disease from ever developing in the first place.
A 2009 study of 23,000 participants, review by Earl S. Ford, MD, MPH, of the CDC’s, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, and his colleagues, and published in the The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Archives of Internal Medicine, concluded that “adhering to 4 simple healthy lifestyle factors can have a strong impact on the prevention of chronic diseases.”
The 4 simple healthy lifestyles factors studied included: smoking, physical activity, diet, and body weight.
Three of these healthy lifestyles factors are health promoting activities or actions and included; “never smoking,” performing 3.5 hours or more of physical activity weekly, and “adhering to healthy dietary principles (high intake of fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain bread and low meat consumption.” The fourth healthy lifestyles factor that was dependant on physical activity and adhering to a healthy diet was maintaining a “body mass index lower than 30”
The study focused on 4 chronic diseases; type 2 diabetes mellitus, myocardial infarction, stroke, and cancer. When all 4 of the healthy lifestyles factors were in place, there was an 80% less likelihood of developing a chronic disease over a person’s lifetime. Failing to maintain just 1 of these lifestyles factors reduced this likelihood to 50%.
The authors point out that “because the roots of these factors often originate during the formative stages of life, it is especially important to start early in teaching the important lessons concerning healthy living.”
Since this study was published in 2009, two additional recent studies have supported the association between lifestyle and chronic disease (see additional information below).
For additional information: Additional studies: Kvaavik E, Batty GD, Ursin G, Huxley R, Gale CR; Influence of individual and combined health behaviors on total and cause-specific mortality in men and women: the United Kingdom health and lifestyle survey; Arch Intern Med.2010 Apr 26;170(8):711-8. McCullough ML, Patel AV, Kushi LH, Patel R, Willett WC, Doyle C, Thun MJ, Gapstur SM; Following cancer prevention guidelines reduces risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev.2011 Jun; 20(6):1089-97. Epub 2011 Apr 5. Weight management for women in their mid years: www.Aspire2Wellness.com
Sources: Archives of Internal Medicine; Arch Intern Med. 2009;169 (15):1355-136, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention( CDC), National Institute of Health,
