An extended study
Over a 36-year period, the study tracked the eating habits of 75,000 women who took part in the Nurses' Health Study and more than 44,000 men who participated in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. At the beginning of the trial, neither the men nor the women had cardiovascular disease, and only a small percentage smoked. All completed eating surveys every four years.
According to Hu, this is one of the biggest and longest-running cohort studies to assess suggested dietary patterns and the long-term risk of premature mortality and deaths from major illnesses.
Hu and his colleagues assigned individuals a score based on how closely they adhered to four healthy eating habits that are consistent with the most recent US dietary recommendations.
One is the Mediterranean diet, according to Hu, which places an emphasis on consuming fruit, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, fish, and a lot of olive oil. In addition to plant-based meals and minimal alcohol use, this dietary pattern emphasizes healthy fats, particularly monounsaturated fat.
The second is referred to as the healthy plant-based diet, which likewise emphasizes consuming more plant items but deducts points for any consumption of alcohol and all animal products.
Hu noted that this dietary regimen prohibits harmful plant-based meals like potato dishes and even some somewhat healthy choices, such fish or some dairy items.
He said concluded that folks who consume a lot of animal products or highly processed carbohydrate meals would be at the lower end of this score, and vegetarians are probably on the upper end of this diet score.
The Healthy Eating Index measures whether people adhere to fundamental US dietary recommendations, which emphasize wholesome, plant-based meals, oppose red and processed meat, and restrict the use of added sugar, harmful fats, and alcohol, according to Hu.
The Alternate Healthy Eating Index was created at Harvard and includes the foods and nutrients most strongly linked to a decreased risk of chronic illness based on the "best available data." Scholars specifically incorporated nuts, seeds, whole grains, and reduced intake of red and processed meats, as well as beverages with added sugar. Moderate alcohol drinking is permitted."
Conclusions by disease
The individuals were grouped into five groups, or quintiles, from highest to lowest adherence to one or more of the dietary behaviors after each person's eating pattern was evaluated.
According to Katz, president and founder of the nonprofit True Health Initiative, a global alliance of specialists committed to evidence-based lifestyle medicine, the greatest quintile of food quality as opposed to the lowest was related with an approximately 20% reduction in all-cause death.
According to Hu, the study also discovered that when people's diets got better over time, their probability of dying from several chronic conditions decreased. P articipants whose diets were 25% healthier might lower their chance of dying from cancer by 7% to 18% and from cardiovascular disease by 6% to 13%. There was a 7% reduction in the probability of dying from dementia or other neurological diseases. T he probability of dying from respiratory illness was really reduced by 35% to 46%.
Because participants' food preferences were reported voluntarily, the study could only demonstrate a correlation between eating behaviors and health outcomes rather than a cause and effect relationship. Hu explained that the findings were strengthened by the fact that the research questioned about diets on average every four years over such a lengthy period of time.
What is the main finding of this extensive study?
The benefits of eating a nutritious diet can be substantial in terms of lowering overall premature deaths and various causes of premature death, according to Hu. It's never too late to establish good eating patterns.
People may design their own healthy eating patterns with a lot of freedom. No matter what sort of diet you wish to develop, the basic principles of eating more plant-based foods and less red meat, processed meat, added sugar, and salt should apply.
