NEW ORLEANS — There is now a test you can take to see how many years you are adding to, or subtracting from your life.
It centers on how you are treating your heart.
And a local doctor was part of the study.
Do you want to add almost nine years to your life? A new study out of Tulane suggests there is a pathway to get there by taking care of your heart.
Tulane epidemiologist Dr. Lu Qi looked at health data from more than 23,000 people of all ages, over more than a decade. He found that people who followed the American Heart Association’s Life's Essential 8, could expect at age 50, to live 8.9 more years than those who did not.
“That's huge. That's considerable, you know, nearly 9 years longer, nearly nine years longer if they keep their heart healthy,” Dr. Qi said.
So, what is Life's Essential 8, or LE8 for short? It's scoring high on these eight lifestyle choices:
Keeping normal blood pressure, seven to nine hours of quality sleep, keeping a normal body weight and not getting obese, following a healthful diet like DASH which is low in salt, keeping normal cholesterol, getting exercise, keeping glucose normal and not getting diabetes, and not smoking or vaping.
“Our study is the first to report the relation between these new metrics and predicting life expectancy, how long you can live,” Dr, Qi said.
The study is in the journal Circulation. Dr. Qi says he can calculate at any age, the extra years you could potentially live. And the sooner you start following the LE8, the more years of good health you could potentially add to your life.
You can take the test to see what your LE8 score is here:
Scientific article in the journal “Circulation":
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