People could add up to 14 years to their lifespan by adopting four healthy lifestyle behaviors – quit smoking, exercise regularly, drink moderately and eat five servings of fruit and vegetables each day, a new British study published in the Public Library of Science Medicine revealed on Thursday.

Researchers at Cambridge University monitored the health of 20,000 men and women, aged between 45 and 79 from Norfolk between 1993 and 2006. The participants, none of whom was known to have cancer or heart disease at the beginning of the study, were awarded one point each if they met the following criteria: they did not smoke, consumed one to 14 units of alcohol on a weekly basis, ate fruit and vegetables daily and exercised regularly.

Regardless of the a person's social class or body mass index (BMI), by the end of the study, considering the age factor, the study showed that those who not undertake any of these healthy forms of behavior, were four times more likely to have died than those who had scored four.

As the researchers also recorded deaths among the participants throughout the study, considering the age factor, they concluded that 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.

“We've know that individually, measures such as not smoking and exercising can have an impact upon longevity, but this is the first time we have looked at them altogether,” said lead researcher Professor Kay-Tee Khaw. “It means a large proportion of the population really could feel health benefits through moderate changes.”

The study proved that it is most beneficial to quit smoking since smokers had the shortest lives, with 77% of them most likely to have passed away before the study ended, while those whose diet was rich in fiber had 44% more chances of surviving the 11 years.

A low alcohol intake improved people's chance of survival by 26% and being physically active by 24%.

“The results of this study need to be confirmed in other populations. Nevertheless they strongly suggest that these four achievable lifestyle changes could have a marked improvement on the health of middle aged and older people. This is particularly important given the aging population in the UK and other European countries,” the team of researches stated.