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 health score 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.

研究人员于本周二称，适量饮酒、运动、每天吃五份水果和蔬菜，而且不吸烟的人要比没有这些习惯的人平均多活14年。

该英国研究小组称，大量证据已表明，这些生活习惯有益于身体健康、延年益寿，而这项最新研究则量化了这四种习惯的综合效应。

研究人员在《公共科学图书馆：医学》(PLos: Public Library of Science)期刊中写道：“研究结果进一步证明，生活方式的微小变化会对人们的身体健康产生很大影响。”

从1993年至1997年，研究人员对英国2万名身体健康的男性和女性的生活习惯进行了调查，他们还检测了每名研究对象血液中的维生素C含量。维生素C能够衡量人们的水果和蔬菜摄入量。

之后，研究人员给每位研究对象打分，分值范围为0分到4分，每一种健康习惯得1分。研究对象的年龄在45岁至79岁之间。

在综合考虑年龄及其它可能影响寿命的因素后，研究人员得出结论：得分为0分的研究对象死亡的风险为其他人的四倍，这些人尤其容易死于心血管疾病。

此外，健康得分为0分的研究对象的死亡风险与比他们大14岁、健康得分为4分的人相同。研究人员对研究对象死亡情况的调查一直持续到2006年。

研究发现，在四种健康习惯中，戒烟最有益于健康，戒烟后的健康状况能改善80%。其次是吃水果和蔬菜。

剑桥大学及医学研究学会的Kay-Tee Khaw及其同事们称，适度饮酒和锻炼身体带来的益处相同。

研究报告中提到：“基于这一研究结果，公共卫生部门现在应该可以更好地鼓励人们改变不良的生活习惯，从而改善中老年人的身体健康。”

Vocabulary:

be in a position to do sth.:能够做某事