Mas vida

It seems that headlines today scream the risks and prevalence of chronic, life-threatening conditions. Virtually every week, there are people in the public eye falling victim to cancer, heart disease, diabetes or stroke, and it always makes me stop to think about how challenging their situations are, and how randomly these diseases seem to attack; it seems that nobody is immune. Because of the stress that serious illnesses bring to entire families and circles of friends, I was interested to see the results of a new report in the August 10/24 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, that has some reassuring results: Four healthy lifestyle factors--never smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly and following a healthy diet--together appear to be associated with as much as an 80 percent reduction in the risk of developing the most common and deadly chronic diseases.

According to background information in the article, cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes are "chronic diseases that together account for most deaths", and are largely preventable. "An impressive body of research has implicated modifiable lifestyle factors such as smoking, physical activity, diet and body weight in the causes of these diseases," write author Earl S. Ford, M.D., M.P.H., and his colleagues.

In this study, they assessed data from 23,513 German adults age 35 to 65. At the beginning of the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutritional "Potsdam (EPIC-Potsdam) study" between 1994 and 1998 participants answered questions about their body weight and height, diseases, sociodemographic and lifestyle characteristics and diet.

Their responses were analyzed according to four healthy lifestyle factors: never smoking, having a body mass index lower than 30, exercising for at least three and a half hours per week and following healthy dietary principles (for example, having a diet with high consumption of fruits and vegetables while limiting meat consumption). Follow-up questionnaires were administered every two to three years.

Most participants had one to three of these health factors, fewer than 4 percent had zero healthy factors and 9 percent had all four factors. Over an average of 7.8 years of follow-up, 2,006 participants developed new cases of diabetes (3.7 percent), heart attack (0.9 percent), stroke (0.8 percent) or cancer (3.8 percent).

After adjusting for age, sex, education level and occupation, individuals with more healthy lifestyle factors were less likely to develop chronic diseases. Participants who had all four factors at the beginning of the study had a 78 percent lower risk of developing any of the chronic diseases during the follow-up period than those who had none of the healthy factors. The four factors were associated with a 93 percent reduced risk of diabetes, 81 percent reduced risk of heart attack, 50 percent reduced risk of stroke and 36 percent reduced risk of cancer.

The largest reduction in risk was associated with having a BMI lower than 30, followed by never smoking, at least 3.5 hours of physical activity and then adhering to good dietary principles.

"Our results reinforce current public health recommendations to avoid smoking, to maintain a healthy weight, to engage in physical activity appropriately and to eat adequate amounts of fruits and vegetables and foods containing whole grains and to partake of red meat prudently", the authors write. "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".

The implications of this study are important from a stress management perspective because chronic illness obviously causes a great deal of stress, <i>and</i> stress can affect some of the factors that contribute to chronic illness. For example, stress can lead to poor diet choices through cortisol cravings, and emotional eating, as well as other factors (see this article on stress and diet), and a poor diet can lead to greater reactivity to stress. Stress has also been associated with metabolic syndrome (read more about stress and metabolic syndrome, which is linked with diabetes. There is a clear link between stress and cardiovascular disease, both direct and indirect. And stress is also linked with an increased stroke risk, though more research needs to be done.

Stress is also linked to factors that increase the risk of these conditions. For example, stress can be a trigger for most smokers, and remains one of the biggest obstacles for those attempting to quit. Emotional eating and cortisol cravings can lead to weight gain and, conversely, a higher BMI. Stressed people are often busy people, and busy people often don't feel they have the time or energy to exercise. The links are manifold.

The following resources can help you start today in making changes that can greatly lower your risk of developing these chronic conditions by changing your lifestyle and managing your stress levels. Share them with your loved ones, and we can all help reduce the prevalence of these serious and somewhat preventable conditions.

Resources for Healthy Living

Stress and Diet

Exercise for Busy People

Stress and Heart Disease

Source:
Earl, E.S. www.jamamedia.orgwww.jamamedia.org 2009.