I hope you'll take this to heart: Adopting a healthy lifestyle even in your 50s or 60s can significantly cut your risk of heart disease or premature death.

Researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina have been tracking data from nearly 16,000 women and men since the late 1980s and have determined that middle-aged adults who eat five or more daily servings of fruits and vegetables, exercise for at least two and a half hours a week, keep their weight down, and refrain from smoking cut their risk of heart disease by 35 percent and their risk of death by 40 percent after just four years. Impressive.

Essentially, these individuals caught up. They bought some time and ended up rivaling those who'd been doing the right things all along. Even those who didn't totally clean up their act -- perhaps they mastered just two or three of the lifestyle changes -- lowered their risk of dying.

There was an added bonus that emerged from this study. Besides minimizing heart disease, it became clear that eating right, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, and not smoking also fend off other serious illnesses, like diabetes and cancer.