A new study, which tracked more than 100,000 people over decades, shows that the risk of premature death from any cause can be reduced by nearly 20 percent simply by eating a variety of healthy foods.
References studying Published in JAMA Internal Medicine on Monday, people who closely followed one of four healthy dietary patterns, all focused on consuming more whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes, were less likely to die from diseases such as cancer and heart Vascular diseases, respiratory diseases and nervous disorders.
And lifestyle medicine specialist David Katz praises the study, which he didn’t participate in, saying it showed “there’s more than one way to eat and reap the associated health benefits,” according to the cnn.
Study co-author Dr Frank Hu said: ‘People often get bored with one way of eating, so this study offers the good news, which is that we have great flexibility in terms of building our own healthy diets which can be adapted to individual food preferences, health conditions and cultures.
Long-term study
The study followed the dietary habits of 75,000 women and more than 44,000 men over a 36-year period. None of the men and women participating in the study had cardiovascular disease at the start of the study and very few were smokers. They took food questionnaires every four years.
“This is one of the largest and longest-running studies examining recommended dietary patterns and the long-term risks of premature mortality and mortality from serious disease,” said Hu Jintao, professor of nutrition and epidemiology and chair of the Harvard Department of Nutrition. , who was involved in the study.
The study team documented study participants’ common scores for four healthy eating styles, consistent with current dietary guidelines in the United States.
Frank Ho divided healthy eating patterns into two main systems, one of which is the Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes the consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, fish and a high amount of olive oil, as this dietary pattern focuses on healthy fats, especially monounsaturated fats, as well as plant foods and moderate alcohol.
The second is what they called the “healthy vegetarian diet,” which also focuses on consuming more plant products, but giving negative points to all animal products and alcohol.
Less consumption of meat
The chair of Harvard’s Department of Nutrition encourages adoption of the latter system, while noting that people who ate a lot of animal products or processed carbohydrate-rich foods scored the lowest for healthy eating.
Hu said the study found a reduced risk of dying from some chronic diseases if people improved their diet over time.
He added that participants who improved the health of their diet by 25 percent could reduce their risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 6 to 13 percent and death from cancer by 7 to 18 percent, and there was a decrease of up to seven. percentage risk of death from neurological diseases, such as dementia.
He pointed out that “the reduction in deaths from respiratory disease is much greater, as a healthy diet reduced the risk by 35 to 46 percent.”
It’s insideAlternative index of healthy eatingDeveloped by Harvard University, people have great flexibility in creating their own healthy eating pattern. But the main recommendations are that a person should eat more plant foods, fewer servings of red and processed meat, and consume less added sugar and sodium, regardless of the type of diet you want.
“It’s never too late to adopt healthy eating patterns, and the benefits of a healthy diet can be significant in terms of reducing the total number of premature deaths and their various causes,” said Hu.
