Quality Of Life Is Most Important Than Its Length

Most severely ill people confess that they would agree to improve quality of remaining life instead of prolonging it.

A number of European survey respondents confessed that most horrible aspects of severe untreatable disease are pains and the necessity to be a burden on family. Also most preferable is relief from bodily sufferings than release of family from troubles connected with them.

In survey participated almost nine hundred people from England, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. Two thirds of them had relatives with serious diseases such as cancer. Half of them said that they had an occasion to sit at person's bed-side past months and one in ten said they suffered themselves from diseases.

They were asked what would they do if they had only one year left to live. 71% said they would like to live happily their last months and only 4% said they would like to prolong their life. The rest 25% said that both quality of life and its length are important. In England 47% confessed that their main desire is to release from pain. 25% would like to keep their courage. Only 8% said they were anxious about following through their beginnings.

Unhealthy Lifestyle Shortens Life

Unhealthy lifestyle shortens life by 12 years. Experts from Bupa, a British health care organization, have discovered that middle-aged English women do belong to category of most unhealthy citizens of the country. It is related to the fact that no one wants to follow healthy lifestyle: women consume too much food and do not contribute much time for sports. Other population groups also do actively shorten their lives by consuming alcohol and smoking.

However, researchers found that permanent relationship or marriage may help couples to live four years longer. “It is never too late to change your life for the better”, says medical director of Bupa Health and Wellbeing, Annabel Bentley. - “Doesn't matter your age – whether you are over twenty or over seventy – you may add some years to your life but you should change lifestyle for that. We all know negative effects of smoking and alcohol on our health but this research helps to make some calculations, so finally they know how many years they lose.”

Bupa created on their official site special medical calculator to count approximate length of human life. In order to perform these accounts you should enter your age, height and other data (amount of alcohol you consume, number of exercises you make).

Calculator defines your “health age” (which may greatly differ from biological one) and provides some recommendations to improve your health. For example, you should change your diet, reduce alcohol consumption and make regular exercises. Bupa claims that an average inhabitant of Great Britain could be 12 years younger his biological age if they kept healthy lifestyle.