Doctors have for the first time quantified the effect of the three major killers of middle-aged men: smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Men who smoke and fail to give up, or to control their blood pressure and cholesterol (where necessary) are sacrificing 10 to 15 years of their lives.
Results from the 40-year Whitehall study, landmark research into 19,000 civil servants begun in the late 1960s, shows that men who reached the age of 50 with all three risk factors lived on average to the age of 73, while those without any of the risks lived till 83. When other risks were included, such as diabetes and obesity, they found the least healthy lived until 70 on average, while the most healthy lived till 85.
Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), which helped fund the research published in the British Medical Journal, said: "This important study puts a figure on the life-limiting effects of smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. It provides a stark illustration of how these risk factors in middle age can reduce life expectancy."
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
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