At this point, most of us generally have a clue about the basics of staying in good health—eat well, exercise, don't drink too much and don't smoke. And plenty of research has been dedicated to exploring how failing on any of those fronts, or even more than one at a time, can be detrimental to overall health. Yet, for many people, those bad habits have a way of accumulating. And, according to a new study published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine, their cumulative impact can be pretty grim. In an analysis of nearly 5,000 adults tracked for two decades, researchers found that stacking up these four bad habits can work together to prematurely age you by as much as 12 years.
Overall, 314 people studied had all four unhealthy behaviors. Among them, 91 died during the study, or 29 percent. Among the 387 healthiest people with none of the four habits, only 32 died, or about 8 percent.
Looked at independently, the risky behaviors included smoking, a sedentary lifestyle, little consumption of fruit and vegetables and regular drinking—an average of three drinks per day for men, or two for women. When compared to people who had the most healthy habits—those who never smoked, exercised at least two hours per week, ate plenty of fruits and veggies and didn't drink at all, or drank more moderately, those with all four bad habits had an increased risk of death equivalent to being 12 years older.
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