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Pensioners halve their odds of living another decade if they smoke, drink, eat little fruit and avoid exercise, a major study has found.
Researchers have created a groundbreaking 'health calculator' which 75-year-olds can use to show their chances of living to 85 - and some of it makes for grim reading.
It shows that 75-year-old men with the worst lifestyle habits have just a 35 per cent chance of living another decade, while those odds soar to 67 per cent for healthy people.
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Researchers have created a groundbreaking 'health calculator' which allows 75-year-olds to calculate their odds of living to 85 - with some rather stark results
For women, 75-year-olds who smoke, drink, eat little fruit and avoid exercise had a 45 per cent chance of living another decade - compared to 74 per cent for the healthiest women.
The long-term study of almost 17,000 people was carried out by researchers at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
They asked participants key questions about four of life's biggest 'risk factors': whether they drank, smoked, did exercise and ate fruit.
The scientists' findings revealed a 75-year-old with a healthy lifestyle can have a better life expectancy than a 65-year-old with unhealthy habits.
And their figures were used to create a fascinating 'health calculator' - claimed to be the first of its kind - which the researchers say could become a vital tool for GPs.
The study found that those with unhealthy living habits - such as drinking and smoking - had just a 45 per cent chance of living another decade (file photo)
Eva Martin-Diener, one of the study's authors, said: 'The easy-to-understand overview boards will be able to assist physicians in the practices in health advice to their patients.
'They can also be important for the political discussion of prevention strategies for non-communicable diseases.'
Smoking had a far larger impact than the other three factors put together, the researchers found.
They said smokers in their group raised their risk of dying early by 57 per cent.
Poor nutrition, lack of exercise and alcohol abuse, meanwhile, raised the risk of early death by about 15 per cent.
The influence of the four factors 'remained visible when biological risk factors such as body weight and blood pressure were taken into account', the study said.
The research comes after a University of Essex study found pensioners could gain their exercise in unexpected ways - including the Nintendo Wii.
A report in March said the games console, which simulates sports like tennis, bowling and boxing, benefited those too frail to take part in conventional physiotherapy.
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