- Hey guys, I'm really passionate
about living a healthy lifestyle,
for myself, for my patients and of course for you at home.
But there's so much mis-information out there
when it comes to what healthy lifestyle truly means.
So I wanna set the record straight.
Let's begin.
A few weeks ago I read about a study
coming out of Harvard School of Public Health,
that showed if you followed five healthy lifestyle habits,
you could potentially increase
your life span by over a decade.
What were these healthy lifestyle habits?
Can you guess?
- Regular medical evaluation.
(incorrect buzzer)
- I wish, because then that would
help me bill more hours, but no.
- Meditating. (incorrect buzzer)
- Um don't smoke. (chime)
- Healthy eating. (chime)
- Two, you got two.
- Let's just see.
- Have a lot of sex. (incorrect buzzer)
- Exercise. (chime)
- Exercise is in there. - So Important
- Don't drink excessively (chime)
- And then maintaining a healthy weight
but that's kind of assumed with the diet and exercise.
- Okay
- Harvard researchers actually looked at 34 years
of almost 80,000 women
and 27 years of almost 45,000 men.
That's a lot of years and a lot of people.
- You are technically correct
- The results of this study are truly remarkable.
If you take a woman aged 50 who follows zero out of five
of the healthy lifestyle habits,
she's expected to live to age 79.
But if take a woman who's age 50
but follows five out of five
of the healthy lifestyle habits,
she will live on average to 93.
That's a 14 year difference.
And the results for men were quite similar.
How dope is that bruh?
(laughs)
Let me repeat this even more clearly,
if you follow five out of five
of these healthy lifestyle habits,
you could potentially increase your life-span
by up to 14 years, if you're a woman
and 12 years if you're a man.
- God Dammit!
- I wanna be a realist, it's hard to follow all
five of these lifestyle habits all the time.
Sometimes it's not easy to eat healthy
or to always exercise.
What about for you, what's the hardest one
of these five for you to follow?
- Alcohol and smoking have gotta be up there.
- So the sins of life.
- Yeah
- Smoking - Ah
- Because life is so stressful
(laughs)
- I guess like changing your eating habits
because you're so used to eating certain things.
I tried to do no carbs, I eat a bagel every morning,
so it didn't work out.
- We work out a lot and we eat very healthy
but you know we're on vacation now so,
- Chocolate is definitely...
- We found the sin, it's chocolate.
In doing research about healthy lifestyles,
I found that there are specific regions in the world
where people live significantly longer than average.
And those areas are referred to sometimes as Blue Zones.
- Italy. (ding) - Yes.
- Greece. (ding) - Yes.
- Barbados. (incorrect buzzer) - Nope.
- Help me out here. - You got Italy?
- Yeah definitely Asia, I mean they grow old.
(laughs)
- No I can't, I'm done with the guessing.
(incorrect buzzer) (laughs)
- Japan? (chime)
- Correct, Okinawa, Japan.
- Norway. (incorrect buzzer)
Finland? (incorrect buzzer)
- You're naming the happiest countries in the world.
- Costa Rica? (Chime)
- Yes, okay!
- India. (incorrect buzzer)
- No (bleep), no.
(laughs)
- And the final one, that's not a country
and is a religion is the Seventh-day Adventists.
The term Blue Zone came from
a 2005 National Geographic article by Dan Buettner,
talking about these cultures
and reasons as to why they live such long lives.
And that kind of research really interests me.
Within his book Dan Buettner noted nine factors,
that he believes contributed to the health
of the people of Blue Zones.
These nine habits are,
moderate physical activity .
Is this moderate intensity exercise?
Life's purpose.
(upbeat music)
Stress Management.
- GoosFraba
- [Doctor Mike] Not overeating.
(groaning)
A plant-based diet
- [Doctor Mike] Moderate alcohol intake.
(drill motor whirring)
Engagement in spirituality or religion
- Ohhh
- [Doctor Mike] Engagement in family life
- I don't want another chalkboard screech out of ya.
- [Doctor Mike] Engagement in social life.
- This is my best friend Garth Algar.
- Hi
- In doing this research I came across some fun facts,
that I think you'll find interesting as well.
In 2015, Americans had an average life-span of 79.3 years,
and that was ranked 31st,
which is pretty low for a high income country.
Also I found out that women live longer on average than men.
There's some debate as to why that is,
but on the streets of New York City,
I got some pretty weird answers.
Who do you think lives longer, men or women?
- I think women.
I think they just care about themselves
a little bit more than men do.
(compressor engine roaring) (inaudible swearing)
- Women, we're strong. (laughs)
- Women just have life planned out better.
(laughs)
- Usually when I hear the stories on CNN
or The New York Post about the 115 year old woman,
it's a woman.
- You just blew my mind
- Women live longer because men prefer to die first.
(laughs)
- At times I get quite frustrated
when I see people offering miracle cures
and quick fixes for living a healthy lifestyle.
Healthy lifestyle is just that, it's a lifestyle.
It's not a quick fix, it's not a magic pill.
So yes it take effort but that effort rewards you greatly,
not with just an extended life
but a good quality of life
and that's what's truly important.
I've heard the quote,
" that you should add life to your years,
"not years to your life".
But I'd like to be in place
where you can strive to have both.
As always stay happy and healthy.
You could actually gain over 10 years to your life-span.
That sounds weird.
- [Man off camera] Add
- I said gain?
Which one of these do you
have the hardest time... sticking to.
- Harvard did this study, right,
that's what I'm talking about mostly in this video,
where they found...
- You're not just wearing this, you're really a doctor?
- Oh no, no I'm really a doctor.
(laughs)
♪ I'm here for a good time, and a long time, you know I. ♪
(mellow guitar music)