A recent study showed that environmental factors are approximately 10 times more important than genetics when it comes to healthy aging and early death. Conducted by the University of Oxford, the study examined around half a million individuals in the UK. Researchers identified genetic risks for 22 diseases among participants and monitored common health issues such as obesity and high blood pressure. Additionally, proteins from participants’ blood samples were used to measure how quickly individuals were aging biologically. Initially focusing on 164 environmental factors, the study narrowed down to 25 key measures associated with both death and biological aging. These factors included education level, household income, employment, sleep levels, exercise, smoking habits, social support, mental well-being, body weight at age 10, and whether one’s mother smoked during their birth. While these factors played a minor role individually in the risk of early death, they were found to increase the risk when combined over a lifetime. The research highlighted that genetic risks play a bigger role in diseases like dementia, breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers, while environmental factors were more significant in lung, heart, and liver diseases.