In a major study, scientists at the University of Oxford found 25 lifestyle and environmental elements that appear to increase or decrease the risk of early death.
Living in a house rather than a flat, having an open fire and going to the gym were also found to be linked to a longer life.
But feeling fed-up or tired, facing financial difficulties in the past two years, and sleeping and napping too much were linked to early deaths.
The study found there was a positive benefit from eating cheese and, surprisingly, no significant correlation between a shorter life and alcohol, meat, salt, vegetables or fruit.
Living in a house with an open fire has also been linked to a greater life expectancy. Photo / 123RF
Cornelia van Duijn, St Cross professor of epidemiology at Oxford Population Heath, said: “Do we think that diet is not important at all? Of course that’s not a statement we can make in this phase, in the sense that diet is extremely difficult to measure.”
Van Duijn said the findings did not mean diet was unimportant with regard to life expectancy and pointed out that “cheese-eating is related to socio-economic status”.
Her team used data from nearly half a million UK Biobank participants to assess the influence of 164 environmental factors and genetic risk scores for 22 major diseases on ageing, age-related diseases and premature death.
Factors found to be linked to an increased risk of premature ageing included being relatively shorter or plumper at the age of 10, having a mother who smoked around birth, smoking oneself, being unemployed, and living in a council house.
Unsurprisingly, smoking was linked to an increased risk of premature ageing. Photo / 123rf
A good education was linked to longer life, as was tanning easily, physical activity, living with a partner, staying in education longer and having a high household income.
Professor Bryan Williams, the chief scientific and medical officer at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Your income, postcode and background shouldn’t determine your chances of living a long and healthy life. But this pioneering study reinforces that this is the reality for far too many people.”
He added the study showed “how great the opportunity is” to stop people from developing health problems and dying prematurely.
The team determined 23 out of the 25 factors they identified as important were “modifiable”.
Other factors which were not deemed to have a significant impact on ageing and mortality included pollution, noise pollution, being breastfed as a child, sleeping less than seven hours a night, and loneliness.
Commenting on the research, Aimee Aubeeluck, a professor of health psychology and head of school of health sciences at the University of Surrey, said: “The finding that childhood factors, such as maternal smoking, can influence mortality risk 80 years later is particularly staggering.”
Physical activity was one of the factors linked to longer life. Photo / 123rf
“We should be treating early-life health interventions with the same urgency as genetic therapies.”
But Kevin McConway, the emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University, said it was hard to see how some of the “modifiable” factors could be changed.
“How do you modify things so that you are living with a partner, if you currently aren’t? How do you modify how often you feel fed-up, or how often you feel unenthusiastic?
“These potential modifications could maybe be done, but saying they are ‘modifiable’ is too much of a simplification.”
The research was published in the journal Nature Ageing.
