Bad habits like smoke, Drink in excess and the Lack of physical activity They must be corrected as soon as possible to increase the possibilities of enjoying a healthy and happy old age.
This is the main discovery of a new study, published in Annals of Medicine (Elevate)which reveals how the Smoking and other unhealthy behaviors are already associated with a deterioration of health in people from 36 years.
Experts point out that the impact of these habits is even more pronounced when they remain for long periods. The study, which followed the physical and mental state Of hundreds of people for more than three decades, it offers a rare long -term perspective.
Previous investigations had mainly studied people from Medium age for about 20 years. Although it was already known that adopting a healthy lifestyle before the age of 30 is fundamental, this new work, led by a Finnish team, proposed to observe the effects of bad habits from even earlier ages and explore its impact on both physical and mental health.
Using a longitudinal study in which children born in 1959 participated in the Finnish city of Jyväskylä, the researchers followed the participants from childhood to 60 years. They evaluated their health through surveys and Medical exams made at age 27 (326 people) and then at 36, 42, 50 and 61 (206 people).
Mental health was valued by questionnaires about Depressive symptoms and psychological well -being. For physical health, a metabolic risk score was created based on measures such as blood pressure, waist circumference, sugar levels, cholesterol and other blood fats. In addition, participants were asked to self -evaluate their general health.
Risk behaviors
In each measurement, three risk behaviors were analyzed:
- Smoke
- Consume excess alcohol (more than 7,000 g/875 units annually in women and 10,000 g/1,250 units in men)
- Physical inactivity (less than a weekly exercise)
This impacts every habit
Each habit had a different impact: physical inactivity mainly affected physical health, smoking harmed the mental health and Excessive alcohol consumption damaged both areas.
-The analysis showed that those who presented the three risk habits simultaneously exhibited worse mental and physical health indicators that those who had none. Specifically, they presented:
- Increase in depressive symptoms (0.1 points)
- Increase in metabolic risk score (0.53 points)
- Reduction of psychological well -being (0.1 points)
- Worse perception of your health (0.45 points)
When these behaviors were maintained in the long termthe consequences were even more marked: depressive symptoms increased 0.38 points, the metabolic risk rose 1.49 points, psychological well -being lowered 0.14 points and health self -assessment descended 0.45 points.
Crucially, these effects were already evident around 35 years.
“Most deaths in the world are due to noncommunicable diseases such as cancer or heart disease,” says Dra. Tiia Kekäläinenmain author of the study. “Adopting a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of developing these diseases and increasing the chances of living more years.”
According to researchers, addressing risk as soon as possible is essential to avoid that the damage accumulates and derive in physical and mental problems in late adulthood. However, they also emphasize that it is never too late to change: adopting healthy habits in medium age can have durable positive effects.
It should be noted that the study is observational, which means that it cannot establish direct causality: it is possible that poor health predisposes bad habits, and not only vice versa. For example, someone who suffers stress could resort to alcohol, which in turn would negatively affect their personal relationships and mental well -being.
Researchers warn that their results are more applicable to people born in Finland and Western countries in The 1950s and 1960sand they could not reflect exactly the current dynamics of younger generations due to cultural changes and behavioral patterns.
