Add years to your parents, grandparents' lives with regular walks, good diet

Your parents and grandparents can live longer if you ask them to walk greater distances and eat better-quality diet.

A new study indicated that a healthy lifestyle may help older adults with an average age of 73 live longer with a healthy life.

The team analysed 5,248 older adults recruited at an average age of 73 and followed for 25 years.

The average number of disabled years was approximately 2.9 for men and 4.5 for women.

They found that multiple lifestyle factors were significantly associated with years of life and years of able life.

Greater distances walked and better-quality diet were associated with a relative compression of the disabled period.

Obesity was associated with a relative expansion of the disabled period. Smoking was associated with a shorter life and fewer years of able life.

Senior author Dr Anne Newman said that the team discovered that by improving lifestyle, one can postpone death, but even more so, one can postpone disability--in fact, it turns out that they are compressing disabled end-of-life period to a shorter timeframe.

"This clearly demonstrates the value of investing in a healthy lifestyle," Newman added.

The research appears in journal of American Geriatrics Society. 

-ANI