Posted July 11, 2009
( findings from Dr. Gary E. Fraser, principal investigator of Adventist Health Studies)
For years the Seventh-day Adventist Church has honored the mind-body-spirit connection by promoting lifestyle practices as a way to achieve better health and a more harmonious life. The health emphasis has undeniably resulted in an abundance of personal stories of improved quality of life. But can these lifestyle practices be scientifically proven to make a difference? To find out, a series of long-term medical research projects began more than 40 years ago. Called Adventist Health Studies, the project has unearthed some fascinating results.
The most recent study, which began in 2002, was initiated by the National Cancer Institute and is conducted by a team of researchers from the School of Public Health at Loma Linda University. The principal investigator is Gary E. Fraser, M. D., Ph.D., a professor of medicine and epidemiology who has spent years examining how lifestyle, particularly diet, may prevent chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer.
Here Dr. Fraser shares about the research in his own words.
The research:
“Most of the reported research has been on a study called Adventist Health Study-1 that included 34,000 Adventists in California. We were looking at life expectancy, heart disease, cancers-specifically in relation to diet and other lifestyle factors. The second study [which began in 2002] is much larger, about 96,000 people, and it involves people from all over the country. The focus is primarily on cancer, although we will no doubt get to look at longevity and other things.”
Adding 1 0 years to your life:
“I’d guess the paper that really began the interest in this was a paper published eight or nine years ago. The title was ‘Ten Years of Life: Is It a Matter of Choice?” That was quite an interesting paper because we were able to show that based on the choices you make, you could come up with up to 10 additional years of life. We found five factors, and each roughly represents about two extra years of life: whether the people (1) chose to be vegetarian, (2) maintained a medium body mass index, (3) ate nuts with some regularity, (4) had not been a smoker during their life, and (5) had regular physical exercise.”
The impact of lifestyle choices:
‘The choices you make and the lifestyle you choose really make a big difference. A lot of people are really quite skeptical about that and will view with a great deal of skepticism whether or not they should deny themselves something. They’ve been doing something for a long while [and don’t want to give it up] for the promise of an extra few weeks at the end of their lives. But, you know, we’re talking about 10 years difference here __ The bottom line is that it’s really important.”
Extending your life-and your marriage:
“In the general population the average woman will lose her husband about five years before she dies. In the Adventist population that gap is only about two years, so you have more time together.”
Why men appear to gain more years by making lifestyle changes:
“One of the interesting things is that as the population gets older and older with better medical care and a better environment, it actually becomes harder and harder to gather those extra few years and to keep progress going. So you might have noticed that the Adventist men appear to gain more benefit than the Adventist woman in terms of the extra years. And we think that’s because the women were doing better anyway.”
Date July 10, 2009
