Five tips doctor told Davina McCall to follow to live longer & healthier – the last takes less than 5 minutes a day

ALL of us would like to live a healthy life for as long as possible and many tend to assume that life expectancy is largely determined by genetics. However, although there's no denying that genes do play a role, it's actually not as key as your lifestyle and diet. As you get older, your risk of heart disease, cancer, dementia and other diseases grow exponentially higher - but is it possible to slash the risk?.

According to computational biologist and science writer Andrew Steele, there are five ways to boost your health and slow down the ageing process - and you can start with just five minutes a day. We all know that brushing our gnashers is essential for keeping those pearly whites sparkling - and maintaining a good oral hygiene. But turns out, this everyday step can also slow down the ageing process. The guru, who advised to brush and floss your teeth twice a day, explained: ''The first studies that came out were in the 90s and they showed that the people who had better oral health tended to get less heart disease.

''If you've got gum disease, bacteria in your mouth causing tooth decay then that is a fight that your immune system can never quite win,'' Andrew told Davina McCall on Begin Again with Davina McCall podcast. ''It's constantly fizzing and buzzing with inflammation happening in your mouth - and that we know can have an impact throughout your body. It can increase the risk of heart attack, for example.''.

Inflammation is a protective response by your body’s immune system. It is how the body normally reacts to injury, disease, or infection from bacteria or viruses. That acute response is needed for healing. Researchers have learned that as we age, the body develops increased inflammation that does not go away. This chronic inflammation is believed to accelerate the ageing process and contribute to various health conditions, including:.

Successful ageing starts with a good night's sleep - but how many hours should you really be aiming for?. According to the expert, people will see the most benefits when they go for seven to eight hours every night - which many of us are guilty of not getting. Recent study also suggested that poor sleep quality in your 40s can affect your brain health later in life, Healthline reported. “Whether through the clearing of debris, [...] or providing down-time to various systems, the quantity and quality of sleep have profound physiologic impacts that impact our day to day thinking, memory, and mood as well as our long-term risk of cognitive decline and dementia,” said Scott Kaiser, the director of Geriatric Cognitive Health for the Pacific Neuroscience Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center.

''There's even evidence that if you look into the brain of people with dementia, you can find bacteria that cause gum disease.''. Another less conventional tip which may surprise many is to not bother with supplements, the expert said. ''As a healthy person, you don't need to mega-dose on vitamin D. ''If your doctor has recommended that you're deficient in something, then take it - it's absolutely important,'' he emphasised.

''But a lot of vitamin supplements are based on an old hypothesis on ageing science [...]. ''The way that we make energy is we get food, we essentially burn it with the oxygen in the air. So, you eat your food and the sugar in the food, the oxygen in the air then burns that sugar - and that's how you produce energy. ''Now, because oxygen is a really reactive chemical, sometimes the mitochondria (organelles in cells that produce energy) that are doing this reaction [....], sometimes they fumble the oxygen molecule effectively and they create free radical.''.

Free radicals are unstable atoms that can damage cells, causing illness and ageing. Free radicals are linked to ageing and a host of diseases, but little is known about their role in human health, or how to prevent them from making people sick. Although for years it was widely assumed that free radicals are ''bad'', Andrew debunked this theory. There are guidelines issued by the NHS and the Government regarding how much exercise people should do each day.

People should be active daily, and avoid sitting for long periods. The NHS recommends an adults – those aged 19 to 64 – should aim for 150 minutes of “moderate intensity activity” a week. This works out to 21 minutes a day, or 30 minutes five days a week. Or, they could do 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week, which could be less than 11 minutes per day or 25 minutes three days a week. Adults should also aim to do strength exercises twice a week, at least.

Examples of moderate-intensity activities include brisk walking, water aerobics, riding a bike, dancing, doubles tennis, pushing a lawn mower, hiking or rollerblading. Examples of vigorous activities include running, swimming, riding a bike fast or on hills, walking up the stairs, sports, like football, rugby, netball and hockey, skipping, aerobics, gymnastics or martial arts. Things like lifting heavy weights, sprinting up hills, spin classes or circuit training are considered very vigorous.