dr rick's guide to a long healthy life Author:richard selvaggi, m.d. This guide is designed to help you understand how health habits affect the length of life. Used well, it is a starting point for patients and their health care providers to realize the relative importance of twelve different health habits and how they can be modified to extend life. The information for this guide begins with the 10 Leading Cause... more »s of Deaths by Age Group - 2000 from the National Center for Health Statistics. During the last fifty years volumes of studies have shown the benefit of different health habits. This science represents many of the best designed, collected, and analyzed evidenced-based studies the world has to offer. The sometimes-surprising results may challenge some of today s commonly accepted beliefs. The evidence presented should be reviewed by readers to help them decide on the best health practices, prudent medical practice, and public health policy. Richard Horton addressed this issue in a 1998 statement as editor-in-chief for The Lancet: We must analyze the possible benefits and costs of action and inaction. Where there are significant risks of damage to the public health, we should be prepared to act to diminish these risks even when the scientific knowledge is not conclusive, if the balance of likely benefits justifies it.« less