Longevity: Is it true that Seventh-day Adventists live longer?

According to a 12-year study of 34,0000 Seventh-day Adventists in California released in 2001, the "lifestyle habits practiced by many Seventh-day Adventists contribute to a longer-than-average life expectancy." The study was researched at the Loma Linda University Center for Health Research. (Interestingly the city of Loma Linda, which is home to many Adventists, was cited by National Geographic as one of three places in the world where residents live exceptionally long lives, with the other two cities being Okinawa and Sardinia.)

Researchers discovered that the life expectancy of a 30-year-old vegetarian Adventist woman was 85.7 years, and 83.3 years for a vegetarian Adventist man. This exceeds the life expectancies of other Californians by 6.1 years for women and 9.5 years for men. Non-vegetarian Adventist women in the group had a life expectancy of 84 years, and non-vegetarian men, 81 years.

The lifestyle factors that were tracked by the study and were shown to be statistically significant in predicting longevity included regular exercise, vegetarian diet, smoking history, body weight, and (interestingly) whether they ate a small serving of nuts five to six times a week.

Demonstrating the effect of lifestyle on longevity (as opposed to being an Adventist), "life expectancy dropped nine to 10 years for Adventists who were overweight, past smokers, and non-vegetarian, and who did not exercise or eat nuts regularly."

If you want to increase your chance of one day being called a "centenarian" and enjoy more healthy years of living then consider the lifestyle factors above "best practices" to incorporate into your own life.