People who drink moderately, exercise, quit smoking and eat five servings of fruit and vegetables each day live on average 14 years longer than people who adopt none of these behaviors, researchers said on Tuesday.

Overwhelming evidence has shown that these things contribute to healthier and longer lives, but the new study actually quantified their combined impact, the British team said.

"These results may provide further support for the idea that even small differences in lifestyle may make a big difference to health in the population,” the researchers wrote in the journal PLoS Medicine.

Between 1993 and 1997 the researchers questioned 20,000 healthy British men and women about their lifestyles. They also tested every participant's blood to measure vitamin C intake, an indicator of how much fruit and vegetables people ate.

Then they assigned the participants -- aged 45-79 -- a score of between 0 and 4, giving one point for each of the healthy behaviors.

After allowing for age and other factors that could affect the likelihood of dying, the researchers determined people with a score of 0 were four times as likely to have died, particularly from cardiovascular disease.

The researchers, who tracked deaths among the participants until 2006, also said a person with a health score of 0 had the same risk of dying as someone with a healthyscore of 4 who was 14 years older.

The lifestyle change with the biggest benefit was giving up smoking, which led to an 80 percent improvement in health, the study found. This was followed by eating fruits and vegetables.

Moderate drinking and keeping active brought the same benefits, Kay-Tee Khaw and colleagues at the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council said.

"Armed with this information, public-health officials should now be in a better position to encourage behavior changes likely to improve the health of middle-aged and older people," the researchers wrote.

研究人員于本周二稱，適量飲酒、運動、每天吃五份水果和蔬菜，而且不吸煙的人要比沒有這些習慣的人平均多活14年。

該英國研究小組稱，大量證據已表明，這些生活習慣有益于身體健康、延年益壽，而這項最新研究則量化了這四種習慣的綜合效應。

研究人員在《公共科學圖書館：醫學》(PLos: Public Library of Science)期刊中寫道：“研究結果進一步證明，生活方式的微小變化會對人們的身體健康產生很大影響。”

從1993年至1997年，研究人員對英國2萬名身體健康的男性和女性的生活習慣進行了調查，他們還檢測了每名研究對象血液中的維生素C含量。維生素C能夠衡量人們的水果和蔬菜攝入量。

之后，研究人員給每位研究對象打分，分值范圍為0分到4分，每一種健康習慣得1分。研究對象的年齡在45歲至79歲之間。

在綜合考慮年齡及其它可能影響壽命的因素后，研究人員得出結論：得分為0分的研究對象死亡的風險為其他人的四倍，這些人尤其容易死于心血管疾病。

此外，健康得分為0分的研究對象的死亡風險與比他們大14歲、健康得分為4分的人相同。研究人員對研究對象死亡情況的調查一直持續到2006年。

研究發現，在四種健康習慣中，戒煙最有益于健康，戒煙后的健康狀況能改善80%。其次是吃水果和蔬菜。

劍橋大學及醫學研究學會的Kay-Tee Khaw及其同事們稱，適度飲酒和鍛煉身體帶來的益處相同。

研究報告中提到：“基于這一研究結果，公共衛生部門現在應該可以更好地鼓勵人們改變不良的生活習慣，從而改善中老年人的身體健康。”