Having a healthy lifestyle is essential for staying healthy and living longer, but that’s not something you have to worry about until you’re older, right? Well, that all depends on your definition of older. A new study looks at the age when the effects of smoking, drinking and not exercising really start to take a toll and it turns out, it’s as young as age 36.
To find out, researchers in Finland tracked the mental and physical well-being of hundreds of people for more than 30 years. They followed participants from childhood until their early 60s, looking at the way their habits impacted their health over those decades.
- Researchers looked at participants’ physical and mental health from surveys and medical exams when they were 27 years old, as well as age 36,42, 50 and 61.
- They found that when people had all three unhealthy vices - they smoked, drank alcohol heavily and were not physically active - at any point in time, their physical and mental health were worse than if they didn’t have any of those habits.
- And the damage was even worse when those habits were done long-term.
- According to researchers, not exercising was “particularly linked” to poor physical health, smoking was mainly linked to poor mental health, while heavy drinking is associated with declines in both physical and mental health.
- And all of this started showing up when people were in their mid-30s.
But the study isn’t all bad news. “By following a healthy lifestyle, an individual can cut their risk of developing these illnesses and reduce their odds of an early death,” researchers explain. “It’s never too late to change to healthier habitas. Adopting these in midlife also has benefits for older age.”
Source: Independent