 We all want to live life to the fullest and longest, right? Well, this video will look at the lifestyle factors that may enable us to do just that. Check it out. A pivotal paper published in Europe more than a decade ago entitled Healthy Living is the best revenge found that adhering to just four simple healthy lifestyle factors, compared to none, could potentially have a strong impact on the prevention of chronic diseases. We're talking nearly 80% less chronic disease risk, slashing diabetes risk by 93%, dropping heart attack risk by 81%, and cutting stroke risk in half, and cancer by 36%. Think about what that means. The potential for preventing disease and death is enormous. In the U.S. alone every year there are half million heart attacks, half million strokes, a million new cases of diabetes, and a million new cancer diagnoses. The message is clear. Adopting a few healthy behaviors can have a major impact. So what are those four fabled factors? Never smoking, not being obese, averaging about a half hour of exercise a day, and adhering to healthy dietary principles, like lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and less meat. Follow those four simple rules and boom, enjoy nearly an 80% reduced risk of major chronic diseases. What does that mean for mortality risk? A similar batch of four healthy behaviors combined predicted a four-fold difference in total mortality, with an estimated impact equivalent to 14 years in chronological age, meaning the individuals were dying at such a reduced rate that it was as if they were 14 years younger. Finally, a regimen to extend human life expectancy. This commentary was in reference to this study, where a similar analysis of the impact of healthy lifestyle behaviors on life expectancies was made, but this time it looked directly at the U.S. population, which is of particular importance, since Americans have a shorter life expectancy compared with residents of nearly all other high-income countries. The researchers concluded that adopting a healthy lifestyle could substantially reduce premature mortality and prolong life expectancy in U.S. adults. OK, but by how much? They estimated that adherence to a low-risk lifestyle could prolong life expectancy at age 50 by 14 years in women and 12.2 years in men. So if you're 50 right now, instead of only living to 79, if you're a woman and 75 and a half, if you're a man, taking just basic care of yourself could propel you to an average life expectancy of 93, if you're a woman and 87 and a half, if you're a man. The bottom line is it's never too late to turn back the clock. A mid-life switch just to the basics, like at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, walking even like 20 minutes a day, maintaining a healthy weight and not smoking, results in a substantial reduction in mortality even in the following few years. We're talking a 40% lower risk of dying in the subsequent four years. So making the necessary changes to adhere to a healthy lifestyle could be considered extremely worthwhile and middle age is certainly not too late to act. As an aside, realizing the 12 to 14 years of added life study was based on data from health professionals, that got me excited about all the potential knock-on effects. If health professionals start getting healthier, they could become role models for more healthful living and potentially save more lives than just their own. But that may have just been wishful thinking. Practicing what you preach can sometimes backfire. Evidently, displays of excellence can paradoxically turn off the very people you're trying to inspire. I mean, you'd assume that not being a hypocrite and trying to walk the walk would just lead to positive consequences, inspiring confidence in others, right? Don't you want a dance instructor who can dance, a music teacher who can play, a health professional who's healthy? But this simple intuition fails to take into account concerns about making other people feel inadequate. Like, you know how vegetarians are the targets of a surprising amount of hostility and ridicule? That's because they may come off as morally superior and make people feel like they're being looked down upon. There was an elegant demonstration in this phenomenon in this study, where principal deviants who take the high road threaten others' moral self-worth. This is what they did. Research subjects were asked to complete a racist task by an experimenter, and those moral rebels who refused to obey were cheered by observers, but were disparaged by participants who had themselves gone through with it, and for whom the rebel stance thus implied an indictment of their spinelessness. Isn't that interesting? So when doctors portray themselves as the picture of health, patients might think they're being holier than thou and unintentionally alienate people, potentially turning off the very patients who most need their help. You can see how someone with a weight issue might feel threatened and judged by a physician triathlete, but what are we supposed to do? We want healthy practitioners. Physicians who smoke are less likely to tell their patients to quit smoking. Physicians who are overweight are less likely to counsel their patients about weight, and physicians who don't work out are less likely to talk about exercise. What we can do to make patients more comfortable is emphasize that our role is to help people meet their own personal health goals, whatever they may be. Studies show that when doctors do this, take this approach, it increases the appeal of fitness-focused physicians to overweight patients, so we can then display exemplary behavior while at the same time not inadvertently alienate the very people who could benefit most from our guidance.