The key to living longer is to follow a healthy lifestyle. For a good lifestyle, a healthy diet is one of the most important things apart from exercising and avoiding smoking and drinking alcohol. Now, a study has found out that eating healthier could extend lifespan by a maximum of 10 years depending on the age group in which you start eating a healthy diet.
The study titled “Estimating the impact of food choices on life expectancy: A modelling study” was published in Plos Medicine journal on February 8, 2022. The study has been carried out by four researchers of the Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen, Norway.
Researchers found out that having a healthy diet can extend lifespan by six to seven years in middle-aged age adults, and in young adults, could increase lifespan by about ten years.
Researchers analysed data from several studies that looked at diet and longevity with the data from the Global Burden of Disease study, which provides a summary of the healthy populations from many countries. After a detailed study of data for months, the researchers were able to estimate how life expectancy varied with continuous changes in intake of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, refined grains, nuts, legumes, red meat, processed meat, fish, eggs, dairy, and sugary drinks.
According to the study, an optimal diet includes more legumes (beans, peas and lentils), whole grains (oats, barley and brown rice) and nuts, and less red and processed meat.
These results of the study suggest that making long-term diet changes at any age may have substantial benefits to life expectancy. However, the gains are largest if these changes start early in life. The benefits of diet on life expectancy may be different for each person depending on other factors, like smoking, drinking alcohol and exercise.
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