A study published last Friday found out that middle-aged male smokers with high cholesterol and blood pressure die a decade sooner than those without the risk of heart diseases.

Studies have previously shown that the risk of heart diseases can be decreased by eating healthy, not smoking and exercising. But this new study tackled the shortened life span of those who at risk of heart diseases. Researchers from Oxford revisited the information from 19,000 male civil servants who underwent examination in the late 1960s when they were still 40 to 69 years old.

“The study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), found that the men who faced a triple risk threat at the outset were two-to-three times more likely to have died of a heart-related problem than men free of all three risk factors,” according to the study, which found out that on average, their lives were shortened by a decade.

Obesity can also be a cause of heart risk, the study said. Since it has been increasing in the past decade, more and more people, especially children, are now inclined to develop fatal heart diseases.