Following one of these five diets could be the key to living longer
It’s no surprise that eating fruits and vegetables is good for you, but according to a new study, a diet rich in these foods may also boost longevity.
There’s probably one thing the Internet, your mom, and scientists agree on: eating lots of fruits and vegetables is good for you. But according to one new studyFollowing one of five diets rich in these foods and a few others may also increase your lifespan.
By following more than 100,000 people in the UK for years, researchers found that people whose food choices received high scores in any one of five dietary categories lived longer than those who received the lowest scores. Specifically, the team found that even after adjusting for confounding factors — such as whether people smoked, how much exercise they did, and what their education and ethnicity were — study participants who ate according to one of the five diets were 18 to 24 percent less likely to die from any cause.
For women, this roughly translates into an additional 1.5 to 2.3 years of life. And for men, it increased by about 1.9 to three years. The findings were published Friday in the journal science advancement.
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The five diets chosen by the researchers focused on fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and whole grains, with minimal processed foods. In particular, fiber intake was shown to have a strong association with longevity, while consuming too many sugary beverages was associated with higher all-cause mortality.
Marion Nestle, professor emeritus of nutrition and food studies at New York University, says the results aren’t surprising, but they add to the evidence for healthy eating.
She says, “It’s always amazing to me that it takes research of such depth, complexity, and size to conclude that eating a healthy diet is good for health and longevity.”
She adds, “The study also confirms that there are many ways to eat healthy and they all work.”
The diets in the study were more academic measures than the sets of eating rules used in popular diets like the “keto” or “paleo” diets. They included the following categories:
Alternative Healthy Eating Index: A system that encourages food Known to fight chronic disease.
Alternative Mediterranean Diet: A system that is similar to the Mediterranean diet but modified to include foods eaten by people living outside the region.
Healthy Plant-Based Diet Index: A diet-scoring mechanism that rewards plant-based eating and encourages people to consume less animal products.
Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension: An eating plan that focuses on heart-healthy foods can help lower blood pressure.
Diabetes Risk Reduction Diet: A system that cuts out high-glycemic foods – or foods known to rapidly raise blood sugar levels.
The researchers also considered participants’ genetic predisposition to longevity. Sophia Millman, director of Human Longevity Studies at the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who was not involved in the study, says that interestingly, the participants who were most likely to live longer got less benefit from a healthy diet than those who had the worst genetic card.
Still, it’s generally a good idea to follow a healthy diet, she says.
“This is a well-conducted association study,” says Sai Das, a professor of nutritional sciences at Tufts University, who was not involved in the research. The study was not a controlled experiment in which participants strictly followed five diets, so it is not possible to say that their diets caused them to live longer. But she says the large sample size strengthens the findings.
“We’ve always known that diet is an important determinant of chronic disease,” says Das, adding that the diet categories in the study were “very well based on science.”
The work has several other limitations. The study authors noted in the paper that they were not able to rule out potential confounding factors such as people’s access to health care or general “health consciousness.” And because the study was conducted in Britain, it’s unclear whether the findings will apply to people living in other countries.
Das advises not to be too specific about how diet contributes to your lifespan. “It’s not about betting on 1.5 versus 1.7” years, she says. Instead, by including more healthy foods in your diet, “the point is that you will live longer.”
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