The true cost of an unhealthy lifestyle of little exercise, poor diet and smoking has been quantified by scientists who found that it can reduce lifespan by 23 years.

People who develop largely preventable conditions like heart disease, stroke and type two diabetes are cutting their life short by decades, a 50 year study has shown.

It is estimated that around 80 per cent of cases could be prevented by keeping weight under control, exercising more, eating a healthy diet, and not smoking or drinking too much.

For a man in his 40s, suffering from all three conditions reduces life by 23 years. It means that a 40-year-old’s life expectacy would drop from 78 to just 55. Likewise someone in their 60s could lose 15 years, meaning a 60-year-old man might have just three years of life left.

The cost is far greater than smoking, which is thought to limit lifespan by 10 years.

“We showed that having a combination of diabetes and heart disease is associated with a substantially lower life expectancy,” says Dr Emanuele Di Angelantonio from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge

Source: Unhealthy lifestyle can knock 23 years off lifespan