How to live longer – The food that people consume can have a significant impact on their life expectancy, but which diet is considered the best? Studies have suggested the following diet can help reduce risk of death and add years to a person’s life.
What is the Best Diet for Increasing Life Expectancy?
Long life can be achieved by eating a balanced, healthy, diet, according to research carried out through the years. The NHS recommends eating at least 5 portions of vegetables and fruit daily, basing meals on high fibre starchy foods such as rice and potatoes, having some dairy or dairy alternatives, some protein, and choosing unsaturated spreads and oils and eating them in small amounts.
While these are general rules, specific diets have proven to improve a person’s life expectancy over others. A major study done in 2016 found a vegan diet can substantially lower death rates, as compared to diets that include meat.
The study was published in the JAMA Internal Medicine Journal and was undertaken by scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital.
More than 130,000 group participants’ diet and health records were monitored over a course of 30 years.
The findings showed every 3% increase in calories from plant protein reduced the risk of death by 10%. Also, there was a reduced risk of 12% of dying from heart disease found.
In contrast, eating 10% more animal protein was found to increase the risk of death from all causes by almost 2%. While the risk of dying from heart disease increased by 8%.
Those who substituted eggs for plant protein have shown a 19% reduction in death risk, and eliminating unprocessed red meat reported a drop of 12%.
The risk of dying was reported to be most prognoses in participants who also engaged in unhealthy activities, including drinking heavily, smoking, or being obese.
Environmental factors were noted in the interpretation of the results, such that vegans were more likely to be younger than the general population.
Dr Mingyang Song, the Lead scientist said at the time: “Overall, our findings support the importance of the sources of dietary protein for long-term health outcomes.
“While previous studies have focused primarily on the overall amount of protein intake, which is important – from a broad dietary perspective, the particular foods that people consume to get protein are also equally important|”.
The study’s findings suggested people should consider eating more plant proteins than animal proteins, and when they do choose among sources of animal protein, chicken and fish are probably better choices.
In a review that was published last year in the journal Progress in Cardiovascular Disease, scientists have focused on the benefits of a plant-based diet on cardiovascular health.
Cardiovascular health concerns the blood vessels and heart.
Researchers from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington D.C. have looked at the relevant studies over the recent years.
Collating information from observational studies and many clinical trials, they found a plant-based diet was consistently associated with good heart health.
They concluded that individuals who followed a plant-based diet:
- Had a 40 per cent reduced risk of coronary heart disease
- Had a 34 per cent reduced risk of hypertension
- Had a 40 per cent reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
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