5 Lifestyle Changes That Help Men Live Longer

You’re a dad, a husband, a boyfriend, a son.   Which ever it is, maybe all of them, you need to be here.  And although I don’t want to overwhelm you, I’d be in remiss if I didn’t encourage you to at least know the things you could do to live longer. I can tell you from my own heart I wish my dad had.  Dad died about 15 years ago at the age of 67.  Way too young in my opinion. I still miss him. So here we go.

Amazing as it seems I was very pleased to read that most heart attacks in men could be avoided by making five simple lifestyle changes according to researchers. The study tracked men all aged 45 to 79 for 11 years and the beginning of the test, they answered a series of questions about their lifestyle. We’re also talking a very broad study including the information from 20,271 men.  The end results found that four out of five heart attacks could have been prevented by taking these five basic steps. Four out of five!!

So here we go, if you can do all of these you decrease your risk by 86%

1. Losing the belly, get below 38"
2. cutting down on alcohol
3. walking for 40 minutes a day
4. eating more fruit and veggies
5. quitting smoking

I know you are thinking that is just too much! So here is the good news, you can pick even one and live longer. The study showed even making one change reduce your risk by up to a third.

For example the study estimates in order of highest effect:

• stopping smoking cut the risk by 36 %
• a healthy diet packed with fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, reduced-fat dairy products, whole grains and fish cut the risk by 25%
• having a waist measurement of less than 38in cut the risk by 13%
• drinking less than one-and-a-half pints  a day cut the risk by 8%.
• walking or biking for at least 40 minutes a day cut it by 7%

And it can grow from there. If you could say… eat a healthy diet and drink less, your risk should drop down by 35%.

When you can add exercised, to your healthy diet and reduced drinking, risk decreases by 64% according to the study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.