What if eating healthy allowed us to live longer? It’s not new, the link between the content of our plates and our health is indisputable. But for the first time, researchers from the University of Bergen in Norway have quantified how dietary changes can have a significant impact on our life expectancy.
This new study published on February 8, 2022 in the journal PLOS Medicine shows that switching from a typical Western diet high in dairy and meat to an “optimal diet” high in legumes, whole grains, nuts, fruits and vegetables and low in meat could save more than ten years of life expectancy in a 20-year-old man.
To calculate this, the team relied on data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD), a global epidemiology research program at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, USA. In 2019, the GBD had already estimated that approximately 11 million premature deaths were due to poor diet, or 1 in 5 deaths. By crossing these data with other meta-analyses, the researchers then wanted to show the link between dietary changes and effects on life expectancy. “Our initial idea was to study how changes in the parameters of our diet can affect health and have effects that combine between them,” says Lars Thore Fadnes, professor at the University of Bergen’s School of Public Health and first author of the study.
Greater gains if change is initiated early
Thus, a 20-year-old man who makes a sustained dietary change can increase his life expectancy by 13 years. A woman will increase her life expectancy by 10.7 years. A dietary change from the age of 20 would then give a higher life expectancy gain of 48% than if one starts at 60 and three times higher than if one begins the changes at 80.
Increasing your ration of legumes (lentils, broad beans, beans, chickpeas) to 200 grams per day would then increase life expectancy by a little over two years in a 20-year-old person. Just like that of whole grains and nuts (walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts). The decline in red meat consumption also has a significant impact on life expectancy.
Effects from the start of dietary changes
But if the change is not started at the age of 20, all is not lost. By changing diet at age 60, a person can increase their life expectancy by about 8 years, and by 3.4 years at age 80. “If we start from a consumption of zero fruits and vegetables, with each added portion, there is a health benefit“, explains Mathilde Touvier, director of the Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team (EREN).
The study also shows that it is not all or nothing. So-called “intermediate” dietary changes, i.e. 100 grams of pulses and only 50g of red meat per day, can also have an impact: a gain of nearly 7% in life expectancy, at all ages. It’s never too late to change your eating habits.
Sources:
- Estimating impact of food choices on life expectancy: A modeling study, PLOS MedicineFebruary 8, 2022
- Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017, The LancetApril 3, 2019
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