A healthy lifestyle has often been stressed upon for a better health. However, health as a priority is not been taken seriously by many and health regimens are often regarded as a tedious job to keep up with.

Healthy Lifestyle

However, to make things simple for people researchers have reported 5 simple steps to cut risk to heart and risks like stroke.

The simple steps happen to be:

  • Do not smoke
  • Keep the body weight right
  • Engage in moderate to brisk exercise activities for atleast half-an-hour or more every day
  • Exclude the bad fats from food and have food rich in vegetables and fruits, protein rich meat like chicken and fish, fiber, nuts and legumes
  • Keeping the alcohol intake moderate. which is one a day for women and two a day for men

    • Researchers studied 71,000 women and about 44,000 men. The study investigated the lifestyle of the participants enquiring on their smoking, weight, lifestyle, etc and the physician diagnosed information like blood pressure, cholesterol diabetes and on going medications and treatments that also include aspirin and vitamin E supplements, plus physical activities.

    “We’ve previously found that a low-risk lifestyle was very important in preventing coronary heart disease and diabetes, and now we’ve also found that these healthy habits can lower your risk of stroke,” said study author Stephanie Chiuve, a research associate in the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

    “A healthy lifestyle is associated with an 80 percent lower risk for ischemic stroke compared to people who have none of these lifestyle factors,” said Chiuve. “More than half of ischemic strokes might have been prevented if everyone adhered to these healthy lifestyle factors.”

    Dr. Paul Cullis, chief of neurology at St. John Hospital in Detroit, said, “These things you can do yourself without your doctor’s intervention are very important in making you healthier. This study tells us that we’re in the driver’s seat, and hopefully gets people more engaged in the process of trying to make themselves healthier.”

    The healthy ones with low risks of strokes and cardiovascular diseases were found to follow the aforementioned healthy activities which helped researchers conclude the five simple steps towards a healthy life. The complete study is published in the journal Circulation.