Achieving a healthy weight 'adds years to life expectancy'
Being able to achieve and maintain a healthy weight can add years to a person's life.That is according to Dr Clyde Yancy, a professor of medicine at the Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, who has outlined seven steps for living longer.
He said: "Achieving these seven simple lifestyle factors gives people a 90 per cent chance of living to the age of 90 or 100, free of not only heart disease and stroke but from a number of other chronic illnesses including cancer."
Eating a healthy diet, avoiding high blood pressure, keeping a check on cholesterol levels, being physically active and avoiding tobacco were other recommendations made by the doctor.
He warned that obesity can cut a person's lifespan by nearly four years, and he suggested that following a healthy diet is "one of the most important things" to boost health and wellbeing.
In 2003, a study by the Netherlands Morbidity Research Unit, found that being obese in adulthood cut life expectancy by about seven years in both men and women.
