I had the same thought about the article. It basically does say "healthy people live longer", even if you try to slice what they are saying differently. The "how do they delay disease" or "why do they get diseases later" still ends up with the "they're healthy longer". Of course, it's important to answer these other questions, but this article only states that these are questions that need to be answered, so not groundbreaking.

On your exercise and diet, yes they are important, but I believe sleep is the primary driver, and that is why I work in neurotech and sleep.

Of course, there is a strong relationship between diet, exercise, and sleep. They are the 3 pillars of health.

However, you can have a poor diet for month, or a lack of exercise for years before you notice the detrimental health benefits. One night of poor sleep, and we all know how bad that feels. It isn't just how you "feel" your bodies vital systems such as insulin and inflammatory responses are impaired immediately.

A person can continue to have a good diet and exercise regularly to maintain (or slow the decline) of fitness. But the restorative function of sleep naturally declines. It isn't sleep time, but the neurological processes such slow-wave activity, directly linked to the flushing of metabolic waste from the brain, hormonal responses, the list goes on and on.

At https://affectablesleep.com we enhance the restorative function of sleep without altering sleep time. We're building on over a decade of research with more than 50 published peer-reviewed papers.

What is yet to be studies, and is one of the things I'm most interested in, is if we can boost restorative function early in life, do we delay or reduce the amount of decline as we age.