Small changes in sleep, diet and exercise can lengthen life, study finds

A University of Sydney analysis of more than 59,000 older adults in the UK Biobank found that modest, combined increases in sleep, diet quality and daily exercise were associated with longer lifespan and longer disease-free years; related research linked less sitting and small increases in activity to lower death rates.

Researchers report that small increases in sleep, modest improvements in diet and a little more daily exercise were linked to longer life and longer disease-free years. The University of Sydney team analyzed more than 59,000 older adults enrolled in the UK Biobank. Participants wore wrist devices for one week to record sleep and movement, and they reported eating habits for a diet quality score. The study was published in eClinicalMedicine and appeared alongside related research in The Lancet. Key findings: - The analysis used data from over 59,000 older adults in the UK Biobank; sleep and movement were measured by wrist devices for one week and diet quality was scored from self-reported intake on a 0–100 scale. - The group with the poorest habits in the study averaged about 5.5 hours of sleep per night, 7.3 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise per day, and a diet score near 36.9. - For those with the least healthy habits, combined small improvements in sleep, diet and exercise were associated with about one additional year of life and up to four additional years lived free of major diseases (healthspan) in the study’s follow-up period. - The study also reported that larger combined changes were associated with an estimated decade of additional life for the least healthy group, while no single small change alone produced that ten-year difference. - A separate Lancet analysis of more than 135,000 adults found that sitting 30 fewer minutes per day was associated with a 7% lower death rate; an extra five minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity was linked to 10% fewer deaths, and an extra 30 minutes of light activity was linked to 5% fewer deaths. - Authors and outside experts noted limitations: diet was self-reported, sleep and activity were recorded only briefly, and the research was observational, so it cannot prove cause and effect; some analyses also showed diminishing returns beyond certain exercise amounts (benefits peaked near 50 minutes per day). Summary: The studies suggest that modest, cumulative improvements in sleep, diet quality and daily activity are associated with longer life and longer disease-free years, particularly among people starting from the least healthy habits. Because the work is observational and has measurement limits, authors and experts said intervention studies are needed to test whether small changes directly cause the observed associations.