Authoritative research: This latest diet can extend your life by at least 10 years?

Written by: Zhu Hengheng

Editor: Wang Haha

Layout: Li Xuewei

Everyone loves delicious food, and everyone needs food to survive. As the saying goes, food is the first necessity of the people. Since ancient times, food has been a part of human civilization. Under the influence of history, culture and dietary conditions, different regions have gradually formed different food cultures. For example, China has eight major cuisines: Shandong, Sichuan, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Fujian, Zhejiang, Hunan, and Anhui. Western countries love beef and mutton, advocate the original flavor of food, and use relatively simple cooking methods.

In recent years, a series of studies have found that diet not only fills the stomach, but also has an important impact on human health. Different eating habits have different effects on human health. For example, the Mediterranean diet, which is mainly composed of vegetables, fruits, fish, seafood, beans, and nuts, has been proven to be very friendly to human health and can help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Now, a research team led by Dr. Lars Fadnes from the Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Bergen in Norway has further used existing meta-analysis and global disease burden data to establish a model called Food4HealthyLife, which can effectively estimate the impact of dietary changes on life expectancy.

The model shows that for a typical young Western person, if they optimize their diet, increase their intake of beans, whole grains, and nuts and reduce their intake of red meat and processed meat, they can extend their life expectancy by more than 10 years. Even for a 60-year-old, optimizing their diet can extend their life expectancy by about 8 years.

In this regard, the researchers said, "Understanding the impact of different foods on health can enable people to obtain simple and feasible strategies to improve their health and obtain significant health benefits. The Food4HealthyLife model can help clinicians, policymakers and non-professionals understand the impact of dietary choices on health."

The study, titled “Estimating impact of food choices on life expectancy: A modeling study”, was published in the latest issue of PLOS MEDICINE magazine.

Diet is closely related to human health

In the development of human society, diet and disease have always attracted people's attention. Since ancient times, the Chinese medicine system has held the view that disease comes from the mouth, and the same origin of medicine and food is also an important part of Chinese medicine theory. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Chinese traditional medicine theory had a preliminary understanding of the relationship between diet and disease, believing that diet needs to be moderate, and the intake of grains, fruits, vegetables, and meat needs to be balanced.

In recent years, with the rapid development of Western medicine, the relationship between diet and disease has become more clear. A large number of studies have shown that bad eating habits such as high-sugar diet, high-fat diet, and high-salt diet are closely related to the occurrence of a series of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension.

(Source: Pixabay)

For example, since the early 1990s, people have gradually discovered that fat intake, especially trans fat intake, has a negative impact on health. By the early 21st century, many studies have confirmed that trans fatty acid intake significantly increases the risk of coronary heart disease. This is because trans fatty acids can affect the metabolism of low-density lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein, leading to an imbalance in human fat metabolism. This has also prompted the United States and many Western countries to ban the sale of many artificial trans fats.

Similarly, a study previously published in the top medical journal NEJM showed that excessive intake of sugar, especially refined sugar, is also one of the main risk factors for cardiovascular disease, which can induce a series of diseases including diabetes, atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, etc., and increase the risk of various cancers.

In contrast, the Mediterranean diet, which is rich in grains, vegetables, fish, milk, fruits, olive oil, etc., has been proven to be very friendly to human health and can help reduce the risk of a series of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as diabetes and coronary heart disease. This is because the Mediterranean diet pays more attention to balanced food, and the food is rich in vitamins and unsaturated fatty acids, which are good for human blood sugar control and cardiovascular system.

Improving diet could significantly extend lifespan

Obviously, the impact of food on human health is far greater than we thought. Studies have shown that, worldwide, dietary factors are estimated to cause about 11 million deaths and 255 million disability-adjusted life years each year. In contrast, although more than 250,000 nutrition-themed papers have been published worldwide since 2017, people have a good understanding of the relationship between different dietary patterns and health, but there are few comprehensive models that can systematically evaluate the impact of various dietary choices on life expectancy.

Fortunately, a series of meta-analyses have systematically summarized the relationship between the intake of different types of food, such as fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, beans, fish, eggs, milk, meat, and sugary beverages, and the risk of premature death. The Global Burden of Disease study also provides estimates of the loss of human life span due to different dietary risk factors.

(Source: Pixabay)

However, the above data are all overall average data derived from large-scale statistical data, and have limited reference significance for individual food changes. In order to better understand the impact of different dietary choices on health, the research team led by Dr. Fadnes integrated the data from the Global Burden of Disease 2019 and the authoritative meta-analysis data on the relationship between different food intake and mortality searched from PubMed, and created a model Food4HealthyLife that can effectively evaluate the impact of food on life expectancy.

(This tool is currently available online for free: https://priorityapp.shinyapps.io/Food/)

The researchers then used this model to analyze the impact of dietary optimization in different countries. Taking Western countries as an example, if a 20-year-old male with a typical Western diet adheres to better dietary habits for a long time, consumes more grains and nuts, and less red meat and processed meat, their life expectancy can be extended by 13 years. Similarly, for women, optimizing their dietary structure can also increase their life expectancy by 10.7 years.

Figure | By optimizing different food groups at different ages, the expected increase in life expectancy can be achieved (Source: PLOS Medicine)

Not only that, the researchers also found that even if you start optimizing your diet at the age of 60, you can still extend your expected life expectancy by nearly 8 years. And whether it is people in Western countries or Eastern countries such as China, the benefits of changing your eating habits are the same.

In addition, the researchers calculated the five dietary changes that would be most helpful in extending human life expectancy:

Eating more beans can extend life expectancy by 2.2 years for women and 2.5 years for men;

Eating more whole grains can extend life expectancy by 2 years for women and 2.3 years for men.

Eating more nuts can extend life expectancy by 1.7 years for women and 2 years for men;

Eating less red meat can extend life expectancy by 1.6 years for women and 1.9 years for men;

Eating less processed meat was also associated with an increase in life expectancy of 1.6 years for women and 1.9 years for men.

Of course, this does not mean that the intake of foods such as fruits and vegetables is not important, but for most Western and Eastern diets, the intake of fruits and vegetables is already very close to the optimal intake.

(Source: Pixabay)

Overall, the results of this study suggest that optimizing dietary habits from an early age can effectively extend life expectancy, while changes in dietary habits over time have limited effects on life expectancy. For a typical Western diet, increasing the intake of beans, whole grains, and nuts and reducing the intake of red meat and processed meat are the most effective in extending life expectancy.

References:

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003889#sec010

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/941971

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