Seven healthy behaviours to prolong life and reduce disability

Dr. Lester Breslow

Dr Lester Breslow discovered the first scientific and cohesive list of characteristic behaviours which can prolong life and reduce disability.

A sixty year old who follows all seven recommended behaviours would be as healthy as a thirty year old who followed only three.

The behaviours are as follows:

• Sleep between seven to nine hours a night
• Eat breakfast
• Don’t eat between meals and eat at regular times
• Take regular exercise
• Maintain a reasonable weight ( men should be less than 5% underweight and not more than 20% overweight, women should be not more than 10% overweight)
• Don’t smoke
• Drink only a moderate amount of alcohol

The more of these guidelines you follow the better your chance of living a longer life but also your chances of being disabled would diminish.
Those with four or more good health habits had a disability rate of 12.2 % ten years after the survey began.
Those with two or three a rate of 14.1%
Those with one or none 18.7%

Data for this study were gathered by questionnaires from adult residents in Alameda County, California in 1965.

More information about Dr Breslow and his achievements which included doing some of the earliest definitive studies on the harmful effects of smoking is readily available on line.

A non smoker Dr Breslow practised what he preached publishing his last scientific paper at the age of ninety five just eighteen months before he died at the age of ninety seven.