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According to researchers at California's Loma Linda University, Seventh-Day Adventists' healthy lifestyle habits have led to a higher than average life expectancy. Male Adventists, on the average, outlive the general male population by seven years, while female Adventists outlive their general population counterparts by 4.5 years.
The Seventh-Day Adventists stress health as a virtue, and studies find that this religious group has the longest life expectancy amongst any other group that has been formally studied. About 30 percent of Adventists are vegetarians, and 40 percent reportedly exercise vigorously for at least 15 minutes three times a week. And more than 99 percent are nonsmokers.
Scientists collected data from more than 24,000 Adventists age 30 and over and compared them with Caucasians from the general Californian population. According to their results, the expected age of death among 30-year-old Adventists was about 81 for men and 84 for women. For Adventists who were vegetarians, life expectancy was age 83 for men, 86 for women.
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According to a study published in the August issue of Diabetes Care, African-American children as young as 5 years old show early warning signs of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Researchers at the University of Maryland's School of Medicine in Baltimore studied insulin levels of 137 overweight and obese African-American children ages 5 to 10. The scientists discovered that many of the heavier children, in particular girls, lost their sensitivity to insulin. Those children who lost their sensitivity had elevated blood pressure and higher levels of triglycerides, which are associated with heart disease and diabetes.