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By Matthew Rees

Food and Health Fact #150: Longer life expectancy from a healthier diet

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U.S. life expectancy declined 1.8 years in 2020, the biggest one-year decline since World War II. But the decline began even before the emergence of Covid-19. Lifespan also fell in 2015, 2016, and 2017. These developments stemmed from an array of factors, not the least of which was millions of people following what’s become known, derisively, as the “standard American diet,” which forms a painfully accurate acronym: SAD.

What happens is someone drops the standard American diet – high in processed foods and low in fruits and vegetables – and instead adopts a dramatically healthier diet? That was the question explored by a group of researchers at the University of Bergen, in Norway.

In their PLOS Medicine study published earlier this month, they found that a 20-year-old woman who maintained an “optimal diet” – defined as “substantially higher intake than a typical diet of whole grains, legumes, fish, fruits, vegetables, and included a handful of nuts, while reducing red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, and refined grains” – would increase her life expectancy by 10.7 years. For a 20-year-old man, the gain would be 13 years.

Eating more legumes, said the researchers, would deliver the biggest payoff: a life expectancy gain of 2.2 years for women and 2.5 years for men. Eating more whole grains and more nuts were just behind, while eating less red meat and less processed meat each delivered gains of 1.6 years for women and 1.9 years for men.

The study also found that it’s never too late to benefit from switching to the optimal diet described above. For women 60 years old, it would deliver life expectancy gains of 8 years. For men, 8.8 years. And even at age 80, a switch would deliver an extra 3.4 years.