According to research published in the journal BMJ, a healthy lifestyle may allow older people to live longer lives, with women living three years longer and men living six years longer. Furthermore, more of those years may be dementia-free. Alzheimer's disease, the most common type of dementia, affects more than 6 million Americans aged 65 and older, and there is no cure.
The study discovered that at 65, women with the healthiest lifestyle had an average life expectancy of about 24 years, compared to 21 years for women with a less healthy lifestyle. Life expectancy for men with the healthiest lifestyle was 23 years, compared to 17 years for men with a less healthy lifestyle.
Those with a score of 4 or 5 healthy factors at age 65 lived with Alzheimer's for a smaller proportion of their remaining years than those with a score of 0 or 1. For women, having Alzheimer's for 11 percent of their final years vs. 19 percent for those with a less healthy lifestyle was the difference; for men, it was 6 percent of their remaining time vs. 12 percent.
The researchers concluded that "prolonged life expectancy due to a healthy lifestyle is not accompanied by an increased number of years living with Alzheimer's dementia," but rather by "a larger proportion of people living with Alzheimer's dementia."
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