Making these changes in your diet can add 10 years to your life
Diet food
Health experts often explain the benefits of healthy eating habits and also ask us to follow a well-balanced diet for well-being. But research suggests that healthy eating will not only improve the present, but also the future.
Results of the latest study, published in the journal Nature Food, found that if a person switches to a healthy diet and sticks to it, he/she can add up to 10 years to your life.
The findings were published after the researchers analysed food intake data and health outcomes of nearly half a million residents in the United Kingdom.
This long-running study, titled "Life expectancy can increase by up to 10 years following sustained shifts towards healthier diets in the United Kingdom", was published on Nov 20.
Lars Fadnes, who is a public health researcher at the University of Bergen in Norway, led the team of researchers who studied the life expectancy of some 467,354 people.
For this UK Biobank study, which started in 2006, all the residents documented their eating habits.
The researchers identified healthy and unhealthy eaters, as well as persons whose food intake matched the UK's Eatwell Guide. They also studied those who followed a diet termed the longevity diet.
"We show that sustained dietary change from unhealthy dietary patterns to the Eatwell Guide dietary recommendations is associated with 8.9 and 8.6 years gain in life expectancy for 40-year-old males and females, respectively," the researchers wrote in the study.
'Exciting, but not surprising'
The study noted that in the same population, sustained dietary change from unhealthy to longevity-related eating patterns is associated with a 10.8 and 10.4 years rise in life expectancy in males and females, respectively, in the same population.
The study mentioned that the maximum gains are obtained from consuming more whole grains, nuts and fruits and less sugar-sweetened beverages and processed meats.
"Understanding the contribution of sustained dietary changes to life expectancy can provide guidance for the development of health policies," it added.
The study author Katherine Livingstone of Deakin University, told ScienceAlert: "It's exciting, but not surprising, to see the enormous health benefits of making dietary changes."
"This work is important as it demonstrates that it's never too late to make small and sustained changes towards a healthier diet," added Livingstone, who is also the study author.