Did you know, the country with the worst smoking habit is Greece? In 2007 they consumed 8.1 cigarettes per head per day! Spain is ninth and Spaniards smoke 6.1 cigarettes a day. Britain does not even make the top 20 of this league table.

We Brits think we like a drink, but we are almost tee-total compared to some countries. The Italians drink 72 bottles of wine each every year, the French 63 bottles, the Swiss 56 bottles, the Austrians 48 bottles and the Spanish 46 bottles. Top of the drinking league are the residents of Vatican City at 83 bottles per person per year! We only make ninth place in this league table at just 27 bottles a year each.

Nor do we make up the leeway in beer coming just sixth in the world league table behind, among others, the Austrians.

Then we come to life expectancy. The Spanish have an average life expectancy of, 80.9 years, the French 80.7 years, the Italians 80.5 years, the Austrians 79.8 years and the Greeks 79.5 years. Average life expectancy in Britain is lower than all these at just 79.4 years.

But, surely, prosperity is the key to a healthy life? We all know the poor have a lower life expectancy than the wealthy and this is certainly true if we compare life expectancy and earnings around Britain, but league tables of national wealth generation put the UK second only to the United States and indeed in recent years we’ve topped that league table. So how come the Spanish, French, Italians, Austrians and Greeks, who all earn less than we do and generate less wealth per head, live longer while drinking and smoking more?

We could conclude from all of this that the path to a long life is to smoke like a Greek or drink like a Spaniard but the real lesson to learn is that healthy living is a bit more complicated than we sometimes think. Stopping smoking and only drinking in moderation will certainly increase your chances of a long life but healthy eating, exercise, relaxing a little more and taking good advice from your doctor or pharmacist are all important too.

So, it’s great news that the Government and the NHS are making sure we get the best advice in the future. If you have access to the internet go to

or talk to your doctor’s practice. Or, as this is ‘Ask your Pharmacist Week’, why not pop into your local pharmacist and ask for advice?