William Atkins
Wednesday, 23 September 2009 19:37
Science -
Health
Page 1 of 2
According to a United Kingdom study of thousands of civil servants, middle-aged males who smoke, have high blood pressure, and high cholesterol levels are more likely to die ten years earlier than their healthier male counterparts. It gets worse when more risk factors are added!
The study, performed at Oxford University, looked at 19,000 male civil servants in the United Kingdom who were from 40 to 49 years of age.
They were studied at two points in their lives, thirty-eight years apart. The study began between 1967 and 1970.
Within the study, the researchers measured such things as the men’s weight, height, blood pressure, lung capacity and function, and cholesterol and blood glucose levels. The participants also completed a questionnaire about their medical, smoking, marital, and employment history.
The data found that 42% of the men were smokers, while 39% had high blood pressure and 51% had high cholesterol.
Written up in the
British Medical Journal, the results of the study showed that middle-aged men with these three health risk factors—smoking, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol levels—were more likely to live ten (10) years less, after the age of 50 years, than middle aged men without these three risk factors.
The BMJ article, published on September 17, 2009, is entitled “
Life expectancy in relation to cardiovascular risk factors: 38 year follow-up of 19 000 men in the Whitehall study.”
The difference got worse when the researchers expanded the risk factors and included obesity, diabetes, employment, and other such health risk factors.
Page two describes the additional bad news for men with the highest number of risk factors.
