Adopting a healthier and more balanced diet can increase your life expectancy by ten years, and even the elderly can benefit from these new habits.
- Adopting better eating habits increases life expectancy.
- Even at age 70, this change can add a few extra years.
- A balanced diet, favorable to longevity, is composed of dairy products, nuts and vegetables, fish, fruits and white meat and a low consumption of processed products.
Eating a balanced diet is good for your health. This observation will surprise no one. On the other hand, a recent study adds a new dimension to this sentence: according to its conclusions, people who change their eating habits, towards healthier choices, can gain up to ten years of life expectancy. The results of this work appeared in the journal Nature.
How to observe the effects of diet on longevity?
According to the authors, more than 75,000 deaths are the result of poor diets in the UK each year. They relied on a British health database, called UK Biobank. The team, led by Lars Fadnes, public health researcher at the University of Bergen in Norway, was able to model the life expectancy of more than 467,000 people.
The scientists grouped the participants according to their eating habits, then they studied how these changed over the years. There were people who ate really poorly, others who were average and another part brought together individuals who had good eating habits. These corresponded to the United Kingdom Eatwell Guide, recommendations from British health authorities. The last group was made up of people who adopted the “longevity diet.
Longevity: what diet improves your life expectancy?
For the authors of this study, a balanced diet beneficial for longevity is based on:
- moderate intakes of whole grains, fruits, fish and white meat;
- high consumption of milk and dairy products, vegetables, nuts and legumes;
- relatively low consumption of eggs, red meat and sugary drinks;
- and low consumption of refined grains and processed meats.
Balanced diet: late habit changes are also beneficial
The researchers first ruled out certain factors that could influence life expectancy, such as smoking, alcohol consumption or physical activity. They noticed that 40-year-olds who had permanently changed their habits to adopt a balanced diet had gained around 9 years of life expectancy. Those who ditched sugary drinks and processed meats in favor of a so-called longevity diet improved their life expectancy by 10 years. People over 70 who had changed their habits could expect to live five years longer on average. “Overall, the greater the changes toward healthier eating habits, the greater the expected gains in life expectancy“, conclude the authors.
