Scientists reveal the four keys to living a long life

By Jim Leffman via SWNS

The four keys to a long life even if you have bad genes, have been revealed by scientists.

They say that living a healthy lifestyle can compensate for unhealthy genes by more than 60 percent, a new study claims.

Even if you're dealt a bad genetic hand in life you can still live longer by exercising, eating a healthy diet that avoids alcohol, sleeping well and not smoking.

Conversely, those born with good genes can still undo it all with a bad lifestyle, which is linked to a 78 percent heightened risk of early death.

They concluded a genetic risk of a shorter lifespan or premature death might be offset by a favorable lifestyle by around 62 percent.

In real terms, this means that those at high genetic risk of a shortened lifespan could extend their life expectancy by nearly 5.5 years at the age of 40 with a healthy lifestyle.

Writing in the journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, scientists from the Department of Big Data in Health Science at the Zhejiang University School of Medicine in China studied more than 350,000 people from the UK Biobank.

They used a polygenic risk score (PRS) which combines multiple genetic variants to arrive at a person’s overall genetic predisposition to a longer or shorter lifespan.

They set out to clear up the extent to which a healthy lifestyle might offset genetic predisposition to a shortened lifespan.

They looked at 353,742 adults recruited to the UK Biobank between 2006 and 2010, and whose health was tracked up until 2021.

A polygenic risk score was derived for long (20 percent of participants), intermediate (60 percent), and short (20 percent) lifespan risks, using data from the LifeGen cohort study.

A weighted healthy lifestyle score, including no current smoking, moderate alcohol consumption, regular physical activity, healthy body shape, adequate sleep, and a healthy diet, was categorized into favorable (23 percent of participants), intermediate (56 percent), and unfavorable (22 percent) lifestyles, using data from the US NHANES study.

During an average tracking period of nearly 13 years, 24,239 participants died.

Those genetically predisposed to a short lifespan were 21 percent more likely to die early than those genetically predisposed to a long life, regardless of their lifestyle.

Similarly, those who had an unfavorable lifestyle were 78 percent more likely to die before their time than those with a favorable lifestyle, irrespective of their genetic predisposition.

Those at high genetic risk of a shortened lifespan and who had an unfavorable lifestyle were twice as likely to die as those genetically predisposed to a long life and who had a favorable lifestyle.

Four factors in particular seemed to make up the optimal lifestyle combination: not smoking; regular physical activity; adequate nightly sleep; and a healthy diet.

The team pointed out that this was a purely observational study of Europeans with lifestyle only assessed at one point in time so no definitive conclusions can be reached about cause and effect.

Study author Professor Xifeng Wu said: "Adherence to healthy lifestyles could largely attenuate the genetic risk of a shorter lifespan or premature death.

"The optimal combination of healthy lifestyles could convey better benefits for a longer lifespan, regardless of genetic background.

“This study elucidates the pivotal role of a healthy lifestyle in mitigating the impact of genetic factors on lifespan reduction.

“Public health policies for improving healthy lifestyles would serve as potent complements to conventional healthcare and mitigate the influence of genetic factors on human lifespan.”