The study released today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Americans who practiced all four of those healthy behaviors were 63 percent less likely to die early than those who practiced none of them.
Calling the healthy behaviors a "powerful protective effect on mortality," the CDC researchers said the healthiest people never smoke or drink more than two drinks a day for men and one a day for women. They eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly and vigorously.
But doing any one of these showed a positive effect in the study.
Conversely, engaging in any of the unhealthy behaviors increased the likelihood of dying early. And that likelihood increased like a stair step as two, three or all four unhealthy behaviors were adopted.
Authors of the study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, analyzed CDC data from a 2006 national health survey of 20,050 Americans to get their results.
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