Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 3, 1994 TAG: 9408030080
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: C6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Medium
But before you order that hot fudge sundae: Experts point out that if you watch what you eat, too, you can make those extra years of life more enjoyable and illness-free.
``I would never suggest to anybody that a prudent diet or lifestyle is a bad idea,'' said Dr. Steven A. Grover, the study's author and director of clinical epidemiology at Montreal General Hospital and McGill University in Montreal.
The study found that cutting saturated fat to no more than 10 percent of calories consumed, as the government recommends, would extend the life of an average man who is free of heart disease by 11 days to 4 2/3 months.
The same change in diet would extend an average woman's life from 3 1/2 days to just under 2 months.
But quitting smoking would extend the average male smoker's life 2 1/2 years to 4 1/2 years, and the average female smoker's life 2 1/2 years to 3 1/2 years, the authors found. Smokers also were assumed to be free of existing heart disease.
The findings, based on computer models of government health data from the United States and Canada, were published in the August issue of the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine. The study used data from federal surveys and examinations of large population samples in both countries.
Too much fat in food, particularly saturated fat, can boost a person's cholesterol levels, clogging the arteries and promoting heart disease. Fatty diets also are believed to promote some forms of cancer.
The study looked only at the effect of smoking and diet on life span - not at whether people lived with heart pain, shortness of breath or fear of heart attacks.
by CNB