The link between diet and health no longer needs to be proven. For the first time, researchers have quantified how different dietary changes can have a substantial impact on life expectancy. In a study published Tuesday, February 8 in the review PLOS Medicinea team from the University of Bergen (Norway) has established that an “optimal diet” rich in legumes, whole grains, nuts, and fruits and vegetables, and low in meat, could save more than ten years of life expectancy for a North American individual in his twenties today (10.7 years for a woman, 13 years for a man) compared to an average Western diet, where the consumption of starchy foods , dairy products and meat is more important.
To calculate this spectacular impact, the authors worked from the database of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD, the “global burden of disease”), a global epidemiology research program of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle (United States), in which 7,000 researchers collaborate worldwide. In 2019, GBD teams estimated that around 11 million premature deaths per year were attributable to poor diet, i.e. one in five deaths, more than tobacco (8 million deaths per year). The GBD data were cross-referenced with other meta-analyses, the most complete and recent published on each food category, this time to study, not the impact on mortality, but the more positive side: how the food can save a few years of life.
“Our initial idea was to study how changes in the parameters of our diet can affect health and have effects that combine with each other”, explains Lars Thore Fadnes, professor at the University of Bergen’s School of Public Health and first author of the study. According to these results, the simple fact of increasing one’s ration of legumes (chickpeas, broad beans, lentils, beans, to 200 grams per day) would make it possible to gain a little more than two years of life expectancy at the age of 20. years, as well as eating more whole grains (whole grain rice, wholemeal bread, etc.) and nuts (up to 25 grams per day, or, for example, a handful of nuts). Fruits and vegetables should always remain the main ingredients of the diet, but the Norwegian teams believe that the consumption deficit is less significant for these. For all the changes made, the expected gains are slightly higher for men than for women.
You have 63.63% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.