Answer the following question: People who drink moderately , exercise, quit smoking and eat five servings of fruit and vegetables each day live on average 14 years longer than people who adopt none of these behaviors, researchers said on Tuesday. Much evidence has shown these things contribute to healthier and longer lives, but the new study actually quantified their combined effect, the British team said. "These results may provide further support for the idea that even small differences in lifestyle may make a big difference to health in the population," the researchers wrote in the journal PLoS Medicine. Between 1993 and 1997 the researchers questioned 20,000 healthy British men and women about their lifestyles. They also tested every participant's blood to measure vitamin C intake, which shows how much fruit and vegetables people ate. Then they assigned the participants aged 45-79 a score of between 0 and 4, giving one point for each of the healthy behaviours. After allowing for age and other factors that could affect the possibility of dying, the researchers determined people with a score of 0 were four times as likely to have died. Also a person with a health score of 0 had the same risk of dying as someone with a health score of 4 who was 14 years older. The lifestyle change with the biggest benefit was giving up smoking, which led to an 80 percent improvement in health, followed by eating fruits and vegetables. Moderate drinking and keeping active brought the same benefits. With this information, public-health officials should now be better encouraging behavior changes likely to improve the health of middle-aged and older people. Which of the following leads to the greatest improvement in health according to the passage? A) Giving up smoking. B) Eating fruit and vegetables. C) Taking vitamin C pills. D) Drinking limited amount of wine.
Answer:
A