How long does Science say you’ll live?

Pick your lifestyle. We throw the big observational studies in a blender and add up the years.

Your total lifestyle benefit

+5 years 1 month

vs. someone who does none of the good stuff and all of the defaults

🌶️ Spicy food+15 months

Lv et al., 487k adults — BMJ, 2015 6–7 days/week of spicy food: 14% lower mortality (HR 0.86) vs <1 day/week.

🚬 Smoking±0 months

Jha et al., 217k adults — NEJM, 2013 Current smokers lose ~10 years of life; quitting before 40 wins ~9 of them back.

🍷 Drinking±0 months

Wood et al., 599k drinkers — The Lancet, 2018 vs ≤100g alcohol/week: 100–200g ≈ −6 months, 200–350g ≈ −1–2 years, >350g ≈ −4–5 years at age 40.

👟 Daily step average+18 months

Paluch et al., 15-cohort meta-analysis, 47k adults — The Lancet Public Health, 2022 Mortality risk falls steeply from ~3,500 steps and plateaus around 7,500–10,000/day.

🏃 Weekly exercise minutes+22 months

Moore et al., 654k adults — PLOS Medicine, 2012 150 min/week of moderate activity ≈ +3.4 years vs none; more keeps helping, slowly.

😴 Sleep±0 months

Cappuccio et al., 16-study meta-analysis, 1.38M people — Sleep, 2010 Both short (<6h) and long (>9h) sleep predict higher mortality vs ~7 hours.

☕ Coffee+7 months

Poole et al., umbrella review of 201 meta-analyses — BMJ, 2017 3–4 cups/day associated with ~17% lower all-cause mortality vs none. Decaf counts.

🥜 Nuts±0 months

Bao et al., 119k adults over 30 years — NEJM, 2013 Daily nut eaters: 20% lower mortality (HR 0.80) vs never.

Will these results be accurate? Hell no. These are observational studies: they show that people who do these things live longer, not that the things cause it (spicy-food eaters may simply be the kind of people who also do ten other healthy things). Effects overlap — steps and exercise are partly the same behavior — and we sum them anyway, blender-style. Hazard ratios are converted to years via the Gompertz aging shift, the same arithmetic behind Spiegelhalter’s “microlives” (BMJ, 2012). This is entertainment with citations, not medical advice.

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