Healthy Lifestyles give Men Longer Lives & Reduce Dementia

Men with healthy lifestyles enjoy longer, healthier lives: tennis is good exercise.
A study spanning 30 years has found that men with healthy lifestyles enjoy longer, healthier lives and reduced likelihood of cognitive impairment as they age. In the Caerphilly Prospective Study, 2235 men aged 45 to 59, were enrolled in 1979 to take part in a long-term evaluation. Over the following three decades, they were repeatedly questioned and examined, and it has been found that those following at least four out of five healthy behaviours (regular exercise, not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, healthy eating & moderate drinking), showed:

– a 50% reduction in diabetes and vascular disease;
– a 60% reduction in cognitive impairment and dementia;
– a 60% reduction in all-cause mortality.

Exercise conferred the strongest protective effect against cognitive impairment and dementia. Only 5% of men though, adhered to at least four healthy behaviours, with those adhering to all five, amounting to just 1%.

(Healthy lifestyles reduce the incidence of chronic disease and dementia: evidence from Caerphilly cohort study. PLoS One, December 2013.)

Author: Robin Costello

I offer traditional Chinese acupuncture in Exeter, from a tranquil clinic a mile from the city centre, and next to the University of Exeter. I graduated originally from the London School of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine’s 3 year full time Acupuncture Diploma (DipAc) course. I am on the practitioners register of the British Acupuncture Council (MBAcC), a regulatory and professional body with an entry standard of a full three year undergraduate degree level training. I have worked in a hospital in south west China, deepening my knowledge and using acupuncture and Chinese massage (tuina) as the treatment of choice in its country of origin. I have taught Chinese medicine in colleges, the NHS and at university level. I also practise Qi Gong, and Chinese dietary therapy, that is the medicinal use of ordinary foods, chosen to help achieve particular therapeutic effects in different individuals.