A recent study has shown that pensioners with an active lifestyle can add several years onto their lives.The news comes via a recent report published in the British Medical Journal. It revealed this week that expert findings from a study, conducted at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, have shown that female pensioners with exceptionally active lifestyles can live up to five years longer, whilst the most active elderly men live six additional years.
Alan Maryon-Davis from King’s College London said, “These results should put an extra spring in the step of everyone in later life. They provide good evidence that even in your seventies, it’s not too late to gain an extra few years to enjoy life by keeping active, living healthily and being involved in family and community,” the BBC reports.
The Karolinska Institute team examined the lifestyles of some 1,800 individuals aged 75 or older.
The team also found that life expectancy was decreased for pensioners that were overweight or were regular smokers or drinkers. Those that smoke into their old age typically die around a year earlier, but participants that quit mid-life were found to live almost as long as those that had never smoked.