But what does “better health” health mean, exactly? A new study published on February 8 in PLoS Medicine tries to quantify the benefits by using a formula to calculate how many more years you could live by eating an “optimal” instead of the standard Western diet. According to the model the researchers developed, if a 20-year-old male began eating an optimized diet that emphasized fruits, veggies, and plant-based proteins, he could add as much as 13 extra years to his life, and a female of the same age could tack on an extra 10 years. “Research until now has shown health benefits associated with separate food groups or specific diet patterns but given limited information on the health impact of other diet changes,” said Lars Thore Fadnes, PhD, lead author and professor of global public health and primary care at the University of Bergen in Norway, in a release. “Our modeling methodology has bridged this gap,” he added.
11 Million Deaths a Year: The Global Cost of Unhealthy Eating
Previous research has shown the impact of diet on life span on a global scale. An estimated 11 million deaths and 255 million life-years were attributable to unhealthy eating, according to a study published in April 2019 in The Lancet. Researchers highlighted high sodium intake and low intake of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables as major contributors to the health crisis. A study published in October 2020 in the European Heart Journal Quality Care Clinical Outcomes concluded that two-thirds of heart disease–related deaths worldwide can be linked to food choices. The authors estimated that six million deaths could have been avoided through better diets.
Only 1 In 10 Americans Eats the Recommended Amount of Vegetables
To estimate the impact of diet on a person’s lifespan, the researchers used findings from existing meta-analyses along with data from the Global Burden of Disease study, which quantifies health loss from hundreds of diseases, injuries, and risk factors. Researchers created three potential diet options: optimal, feasible, and a typical Western diet. The optimal diet had substantially higher intake than a typical diet of whole grains, legumes, fish, fruits, and vegetables, and included a handful of nuts, while reducing red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, and refined grains. The typical Western diet was based on consumption data from the United States and Europe and contains a higher amount of processed foods, added sugars, and red meat and less fruit and vegetables; the feasibility approach diet was a midpoint between an optimal and a typical Western diet. Data published in January 2022 in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that only about 1 in 8 adults consume the recommended 1.5 to 2 cups of fruit each day, and only 1 in 10 eat the recommended 2 to 3 cups of vegetables each day, including legumes. The average American also falls short when it comes to whole grain consumption, eating less than one daily serving a day, according to the Whole Grains Council. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that adults eat at least half their grains as whole grains — that’s at least 3 to 5 servings.
It’s Never Too Late to Adopt Healthy Eating Patterns
Although young people might be able to make the most gains in terms of life-years, people in midlife or older adults could also add years to their life by improving their diet, according to the authors. “For example, an average 40-year-old woman from the United States or Europe who has eaten a typical Western diet is likely to gain around 10 years if optimizing diet from that age. Even a quite feasible diet modification is estimated to translate into gains of around 6 life years,” said Dr. Fadnes. Even people in their seventies could make small but substantial gains, he added. The findings from this study are logical in a broad sense, says Susan Strom, RD, at UNC Health in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who was not involved in the research. “It stands to reason that if you eat better, you will be healthier. If you’re healthier, your risk for developing chronic diseases goes down,” she says. By avoiding chronic diseases, you’re increasing the chances that the quality and quantity of your life would be improved, says Strom.
Legumes, Whole Grains, and Nuts Could Help Prolong Your Life
Researchers found that the people could improve their longevity the most by eating more legumes, whole grains, and nuts, and less red and processed meat. “Further gains are also associated with increasing the intake of fruits and vegetables, and fish, while reducing the intake of sugar-sweetened drinks, eggs, and refined grains,” said Fadnes. This isn’t the first time that research has touted the health benefits of legumes, but what, exactly, are those? Legumes are any plants that grow in pods, and include things like soybeans, peanuts, fresh peas, and green beans. Pulses are part of the legume family, and they are the dry edible seeds within the pods; lentils, beans, and chickpeas are all pulses. Legumes are high in both soluble and insoluble fiber, protein, and complex carbohydrates. Legumes have been associated with improved health measures as part of diets such as the DASH diet and the Mediterranean diet, said John Sievenpiper, MD, PhD, associate professor in the department of nutrition studies at the University of Toronto, in an earlier interview.
Plant-Based Diets May Help Reduce Cardiometabolic Risk Factors
Previous summary studies of observational studies and randomized controlled trials have shown that substituting plant-sources of protein or fat for those from animal-sources is associated with a reduction in cardiometabolic risk factors and lower risk of things like heart attacks and stroke, said Frank Qian, MD, a researcher and clinical fellow at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, in an earlier interview. “When you eat a plant-based diet, it’s full of hundreds of beneficial compounds that interact through countless pathways to influence the body’s weight homeostasis, glucose-insulin response, inflammation and oxidative stress, and gut microbiome composition and function,” said Dr. Qian. Some of the benefits of a plant-based diet may be due to its effect on weight control, he noted. “Most of the foods that comprise a plant-based diet have been shown in prior observational and interventional studies to mediate weight loss or prevent long-term weight gain,” said Qian.
Small Changes in Your Diet Can Make a Big Difference in Your Health
If you want to find out how eating an optimal diet or the “feasible” diet could extend your life, the authors have made their online calculator available to the public. It’s important to understand that changing your dietary patterns is hard, and it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, says Strom. “You don’t have to automatically go 100 percent to the ‘optimal diet’ in order to experience the benefits,” she says. Strom suggests taking a look at some of the foods and drinks you typically consume in a day start by changing one thing. “Maybe it’s to stop drinking soda or making sure you eat at least one fruit and one vegetable every day,” she says. You could resolve to start cooking more often versus getting takeout, she says. “The important thing is to make changes you can stick with long term in order to make them stick. Keep adding in new goals for yourself with regards to foods and activity in order to not only improve the quantity of your life, but the quality of your life as well.”
