The best results can be obtained by eating more legumes, whole grains and nuts, and less red and processed meat .
The phrase of the ancient Greek sage and father of medicine Hippocrates «We are what we eat» has long been winged. Modern scientists have considered the importance of diet on human health as fundamental, and have developed a decision support model that predicts how diet choices affect life expectancy.
Professionals point out that food is essential to health, and worldwide, diet-related risk factors are estimated to cause 11 million deaths and 255 million years of disability each year.
How many additional years can «eat»
A group of scientists adopted a modeling methodology using meta-analysis data from the «Global Burden of Disease» (2019) and the life table methodology, and showed how an increase in life expectancy (LE) with a long transition from a typical Western diet to an optimized diet can add an extra 10 years of life for young people.
Noted that the best results can be obtained by eating more legumes, whole grains and nuts, and less red and processed meat.
For older people, the usefulness will be significant, but not so great — diet can increase life expectancy by 7% or more for both sexes in all age groups.
Food4HealthyLife — decision support model — allows you to instantly assess the impact of a number of dietary changes on life expectancy. Here is the link: https://food4healthylife.org/
Read more about the scientists' findings
Scientists have presented estimates for an optimized diet and a diet with a feasibility approach.
The optimal diet included a significantly higher intake than the typical diet of whole grains, legumes, fish, fruits, vegetables, and included a handful of nuts, as well as limiting red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, and refined grains.
< p>The Feasibility Diet was a midpoint between the Optimal and Typical Western diets.
- It is noted that a steady transition from the Typical Western diet to the Optimal diet from age 20 will increase life expectancy — on average — by 10.7 years for women and 13 years for men.
- Switching from a typical diet to an optimized diet at age 60 will increase life expectancy by 8 years for women and 8.8 years for men, and 80-year-olds increase growth by 3.4 years.
- Changing the diet from typical to feasible would increase life expectancy by 6.2 years for 20-year-old women and by 7.3 years for men.
