Veganist_ Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World - Kathy Freston [38]
2. Not smoking
If you’re not a smoker, congratulate yourself on avoiding a particularly strong risk factor associated with a reduced life span. If you are a smoker, or are in the process of trying to quit, realize that becoming an ex-smoker is one of the best things you can do to extend your life. Researchers at the University of Bristol in England found that each cigarette reduces your life by eleven minutes. Huge bodies of well-established research have conclusively proven the direct link between mortality and smoking. The 1998 book Dying to Quit, by Dr. Janet Brigham, a specialist in the effects of tobacco, estimates that a typical smoker may lose as many as twenty-five years of life. Clearly, quitting smoking drastically extends your life, benefitting you and your loved ones.
3. Avoiding (and learning to manage) stress
Stress is yet another aspect of life that, if excessive, can rob you of months or years. Not all stress is bad—in fact, some stress is actually positive and normal. But being constantly stressed means that your nervous system is always on alert, and that is detrimental to your heart, your immune system, and your overall health. Meditate, take walks, talk things through with trusted friends and advisers. Just breathe, and put one foot in front of the other; you will get through.
4. Limiting alcohol consumption
The news on alcohol seems conflicting these days, with one study telling us that a glass of red wine a day may promote health, and others saying that any alcohol is detrimental. What these studies agree on, however, is that anything more than moderate consumption of alcohol decreases our longevity. In women, this may be especially true, as we metabolize alcohol at a slower rate than men do. The CDC suggests that for women moderate drinking is no more than one drink per day, for men no more than two.
Too much alcohol intake is correlated with many destructive things: an increased risk of accidents and/or unintended injuries, cirrhosis of the liver, high blood pressure, and some cancers, including liver, mouth, throat, larynx, and esophageal cancers.
Conclusion
As we’ve seen, it’s harder to find a common deadly disease that isn’t linked in some way to diet. With the abundance of advice out there on extending your life, it’s easy to be confused. But consider that a plant-based diet is so clearly linked to a better and longer life that even the American Dietetic Association, which requires overwhelming scientific evidence, has endorsed it as helping to reduce risks for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity. Adopting a whole new, plant-based set of rules for eating could be one of the most dramatic, life-extending changes you’ll ever make. As Dr. Ornish explains, “I find it gratifying to know that when people make the diet and lifestyle changes I recommend, they not only lose weight but also improve their health and well-being.”
And now, the story of one of my heroes.
Ruth Heidrich, PhD, is the very definition of living long and well. At seventy-five years old, she has been running every day for more than forty years, and has been a vegan for almost thirty years. She credits her veganism both for her formidable intellect—she has her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology, her PhD in health education, and has lectured across the country, from Stanford to Cornell—and for her excellent health. She has won eight gold medals in the Senior Olympics, has completed six Ironman Triathlons, and has set age-group records in every distance from the 100-meter dash to the 5K road race to ultramarathon, pentathlon, and triathlon.
Ruth Heidrich’s Story: