Huge study identifies diet that can add 10 years to life!

With new scientific studies and theories being shared all the time around how to improve our healthspan through lifestyle and nutrition, the conflicting information is enough to make your head spin!

But now a huge new study involving 467,000 participants, has identified a diet that can add a decade to life.

The illuminating findings were published in the Nature Food journal after a team of researchers analyzed the data from people who documented their eating habits as part of the UK Biobank study which has been running since 2006.

It was set up to investigate the role that genetic predisposition and environmental factors like nutrition, lifestyle and medication play in the development of  disease.

How the study was conducted

Participants were enrolled from the ages of 40 to 69.

They are grouped as either average or unhealthy eaters, or as people with food intake matching the UK’s Eatwell Guide and those whose diet matched what the researchers called the “longevity diet”.

After adjusting for other contributing factors like smoking, alcohol, and how much they exercised, the study found that middle aged men and women who changed from an unhealthy diet to eating healthier food, and then stuck to it, gained almost 9 to 10 years in life expectancy.

In the study those who followed the Eatwell Guide were reported to have gained just under 9 years in life expectancy on average from the age of 40, while those who followed the longevity diet gained just over 10 years.

The Eatwell Guide is a tool used to define the UK government’s recommendations for healthy eating divided into 5 main food groups –  fruit and vegetables, starchy food, dairy, protein and fat.

It includes rough targets for each group, advocating eating at least 5 portions of different fruit and vegetables every day.

So it’s in a similar ballpark to the longevity diet identified in this study, but those on the longevity diet ate a higher proportion of the healthiest foods than those sticking more loosely to the Eatwell guide.

What did the ‘longevity diet’ include?

Those who gained the most years of lifespan through this so-called longevity diet were consuming what was described in the study as:

A moderate intake of whole grains (the unprocessed seeds of cereal plants like wheat, barley, rye and oats as opposed to refined grains which have a lot of the good stuff stripped out).

They were also consuming a moderate intake of fruit, fish and white meat.

And there was a higher intake of milk and dairy (which might surprise some people), along with vegetables, nuts and legumes, with a lower intake of eggs and red meat.

That contrasts with the unhealthiest dietary pattern picked up in the study among those who ate a diet that contained no or only limited amounts of whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes, fish, and white meat, while there was a more substantial intake of processed meat, refined grains and sugar-sweetened beverages.

Why it’s never too late

The stage in life that you make those changes also matters, but it’s never too late to make a difference.

So those who initially followed an average diet and later changed to healthier eating habits were found to have smaller life expectancy gains overall than those who started out with or switched earlier to the healthy diet.

Which means the bigger the changes made towards healthier dietary patterns at an earlier stage, the larger the expected gains in life expectancy are.

But even switching to a healthy diet later in life can add significant lifespan. With people who made the change at 70 managing to extend their life expectancy by 4 or 5 years.

My take on these findings

So what does all this mean when you weigh it up against some of the other longevity diets that are floating around out there?

Well, while the dietary guide emerging from this this particular study is certainly broader brush, it gives us a clearer picture of what constitutes a healthier diet based on a very large amount of data gathered over a long period of time.

There will be those of us who cut out foods based on allergies, intolerances and ethics.

Many people are lactose intolerant and find dairy is an issue for them. And it remains unclear just how much red meat we should consume (if you’re a meat eater), and how many eggs etc.

But, sticking with the broader brush strokes of these study findings, it supports the majority view among nutritionists that a varied diet based around whole foods while cutting back on sugar and processed foods is the most evidenced way to eat well right now.

That’s backed by the evidence we’ve gathered from the Blue Zones, those areas around the globe where we have clusters of centenarians who have been found to eat diets full of whole plant foods.

They’re not necessarily vegetarian, but plant foods make up the greatest percentage of their diet.

And personally I’ve always leaned towards a Mediterranean diet, which is pretty much the longevity diet identified in this study, and where a primary source of fat is of course extra virgin olive oil.

And if, like me, you have found yourself feeling confused around what we should and shouldn’t be eating for healthspan then I hope this information helps.