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A New Study Suggests a Way to Raise Your Life Expectancy by 5 Years (Without Changing Your Diet or Exercise Habits)
Richard Branson is a famously active old guy. Despite being 72, the entrepreneur and grandfather can often be found rocketing into space, kite-surfing on his private island, or launching innovative new ventures. On his blog recently, he credited a good portion of his age-defying energy and health to his carefully crafted diet.
Eating a lot of kiwis like Branson will certainly do you no harm. And no one would argue that diet plays a huge role in how well people age. But new research suggests Branson might have the aging equation at least partially backwards. Perhaps it’s not just that slowing physical aging helps him be so engaged and optimistic. Perhaps it’s also that being so engaged and optimistic slows his physical aging.
Want to live a half a decade longer?
That’s the suggestion of a new study recently published in Health Psychology that analyzed data tracking the physical and mental health of more than 20,000 adults aged 50 or over for 14 years.
The researchers first sifted through the data looking for all the usual factors that might cause someone to meet an earlier end; things like smoking, existing health conditions, and socioeconomic status…
