A small, simple improvement in diet over the long-term — such as replacing one sugary beverage with a serving of nuts each day — may significantly reduce the risk of premature death, according to new research.
Sotos-Prieto et al show that modifying dietary habits can have a significant impact on health outcomes. Image credit: Silvia Rita.
Led by Ohio University researcher Mercedes Sotos-Prieto, the study shows that eating more whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and fish and less red and processed meats and sugary beverages over at least twelve years lowers total and cardiovascular mortality.
“Overall, our findings underscore the benefits of healthy eating patterns including the Mediterranean diet and the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet,” Dr. Sotos-Prieto said.
“Our study indicates that even modest improvements in diet quality could meaningfully influence mortality risk and conversely, worsening diet quality may increase the risk.
Using three different diet quality scoring methods, Dr. Sotos-Prieto and co-authors determined that eating a high quality diet over a 12-year period was linked to a reduced risk of death in the next 12 years.
Foods that most improved diet quality were whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and fish or n-3 fatty acids.
The team analyzed the association between changes in diet quality among nearly 74,000 adults over a 12-year period (1986-1998) and their risk of dying over the subsequent 12 years (1998-2010).
A 20% increase in diet-quality scores was associated with an 8 to 17% reduction in the risk of death, while decreased diet quality was associated with a 6-12% increase in the risk.
Even among those who had relatively unhealthy diets at the beginning of the study but whose diet scores improved significantly, the risk of death in following years was reduced.
“Benefit of this particular research is that people can easily make lifestyle changes that have a proven health benefit,” said Ohio University Professor Dhiraj Vattem, who was not involved in the study.
The findings are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Mercedes Sotos-Prieto et al. 2017. Association of Changes in Diet Quality with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality. N Engl J Med 377: 143-153; doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1613502
