Changing your diet could add up to a decade to life expectancy, study
finds
A new model, available as an online calculator, estimates the impact of dietary changes on life expectancy

Date:
February 8, 2022
Source:
PLOS
Summary:
A young adult in the U.S. could add more than a decade to their life
expectancy by changing their diet from a typical Western diet to an
optimized diet that includes more legumes, whole grains and nuts,
and less red and processed meat, according to a new study. For
older people, the anticipated gains to life expectancy from such
dietary changes would be smaller but still substantial.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A young adult in the U.S. could add more than a decade to their life
expectancy by changing their diet from a typical Western diet to an
optimized diet that includes more legumes, whole grains and nuts, and
less red and processed meat, according to a new study publishing Feb. 8
in PLOS Medicineby Lars Fadnes of the University of Bergen, Norway, and colleagues. For older people, the anticipated gains to life expectancy
from such dietary changes would be smaller but still substantial.


==========================================================================
Food is fundamental for health and, globally, dietary risk factors are estimated to lead to 11 million deaths and 255 million disability-adjusted life-years annually. In the new study, researchers used existing
meta-analyses and data from the Global Burden of Diseases study to build a model that enables the instant estimation of the effect on life expectancy
(LE) of a range of dietary changes. The model is also now available as
a publicly available online tool called the Food4HealthyLife calculator (https://food4healthylife.org/).

For young adults in the United States, the model estimates that
a sustained change from a typical Western diet to the optimal diet
beginning at age 20 would increase LE by more than a decade for women
(10.7 [uncertainty interval 5.9-14.1] years) and men (13.0 [6.9-17.3]
years). The largest gains in years of LE would be made by eating more
legumes (females: 2.2 [1.0-3.4]; males: 2.5 [1.1-3.9]), more whole
grains (females: 2.0 [0.7-3.3]; males: 2.3 [0.8-3.8]), and more nuts
(females: 1.7 [0.8-2.7]; males: 2.0 [1.0-3.0]), less red meat (females:
1.6 [0.7-2.5]; males: 1.9 [0.8-3.0]) and less processed meat (females:
1.6 [0.7-2.5]; males: 1.9 [0.8-3.0]). Changing from a typical diet to the optimized diet at age 60 years could still increase LE by 8.0 (4.8-11.2)
years for women and 8.8 (5.2-12.5) years for men, and 80-year-olds
could gain 3.4 years (females: 2.1-4.7 and males: 2.1-4.8) from such
dietary changes.

"Understanding the relative health potential of different food groups
could enable people to make feasible and significant health gains,"
the authors say.

"The Food4HealthyLife calculator could be a useful tool for clinicians,
policy makers, and lay-people to understand the health impact of dietary choices." Fadnes adds, "Research until now have shown health benefits associated with separate food group or specific diet patterns but given
limited information on the health impact of other diet changes. Our
modeling methodology has bridged this gap." special promotion Get a
free digital "Metabolism Myths" issue of New Scientist and discover the
7 things we always get wrong about diet and exercise. Claim_yours_now_>>> ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by PLOS. Note: Content may be edited
for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Lars T. Fadnes, Jan-Magnus O/kland, O/ystein A. Haaland, Kjell Arne
Johansson. Estimating impact of food choices on life expectancy:
A modeling study. PLOS Medicine, 2022; 19 (2): e1003889 DOI:
10.1371/ journal.pmed.1003889 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220208143307.htm
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