A diet change can add up to 10 years to your life

Everyone wants to live as long as they can. We are often told that the key to doing so is to make healthier lifestyle choices, such as exercise, avoiding tobacco, and not drinking too much alcohol.

Studies have also shown that life expectancy can be increased by diet. A new study has found that eating in a healthier way can last from 6 to 7 years of life expectancy to middle age adults, while in young people, it can increase life expectancy by about 10 years.

Researchers collected data from many studies that have examined human diets and life expectancy, in addition to data from the study of the Global Disease Bar, which offers a review of population health from many parts of the world.

By combining this information, the authors of the study were able to assess how life expectancy changed in terms of constant consumption of fruits, vegetables, cereals, refined cereals, nuts, legumes, fish, eggs, dairy, red meat, refined meat, and sugar beverages.

Then researchers were able to draw up an optimum diet for a large life span, which compared it to typical Western diet, which contains mainly large quantities of processed food, red meat, high - fat milk by - product products, foods with lots of sugar, pre-packaged foods, and a low consumption of fruits and vegetables.

According to their research, an optimial diet included more legumes (fasule, peas, and lentils), cereals (scarps, barley, and brown rice) and nuts, and less red and processed meat. They also found that having an optimum diet since the age of 20 would increase life expectancy by more than a decade for women and men from the US, China and Europe.

Meanwhile, the transition from a western diet to optimum diet at the age of 60 would increase life expectancy by eight years. For 80-year-olds, life expectancy can grow by almost three and a half years.

But since it is not always possible for people to completely change their diet, researchers calculated what would happen, if people were to go from a Western diet to a diet that was a <x0-metry gold” between the optimial diet and the typical Western diet.

They found that even this type of diet that they called “the access to feasibility” could still increase life expectancy to 20-year-olds by a little over 6 years for women, and a little over 7 years for men.

These results show us that long - term dietary changes at any age can bring essential benefits to human life expectancy. But the benefits are greater if these changes start early in life.

It is not yet fully clear to all mechanisms that explain why diet can improve life expectancy. But the optimum diet that researchers discovered in this study includes many foods that are rich in antioxidants.

Research into human cells suggests that these substances can slow down or prevent cell damage, which is one cause of aging. However, research in this field is still under way.

So it's uncertain, if the antioxidants we consume as part of our diet will have the same effect. Many of the foods involved in this study also have anti-inflammatory properties, which can also delay the beginning of various diseases ʹ and the aging process.

Of course, the complete change in your diet can be difficult. But even the inclusion of just a few of the above mentioned foods, which have proven to increase life expectancy, can still bring some benefits.