Lifestyle choice relating to diet influences the pace of aging over the long term. A great deal of effort has been devoted to understanding why this is the case, focused on the specific effects of excess weight and various dietary components on metabolism. Researchers here make an effort to assess the effects of dietary choices on human life expectancy that emerge from the large amount of epidemiological data recorded in the UK Biobank. The results are in the same ballpark as the benefits to life expectancy indicated by some past large studies of the effects of moderate exercise.
Associations between healthy dietary patterns and life expectancy remain unclear. Here, we reported the prospective associations of five dietary patterns with mortality and life expectancy in 103,649 UK Biobank participants. Over a median follow-up period of 10.6 years, 4,314 total deaths were documented. Alternate Healthy Eating Index-2010, Alternate Mediterranean Diet (AMED), healthful Plant-based Diet Index (hPDI), Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, and Diabetes Risk Reduction Diet (DRRD) were associated with lower all-cause mortality and longer life expectancy, with DRRD showing slightly stronger associations than hPDI.
Compared with the bottom quintile, achieving the top quintile of dietary scores was associated with 1.9 to 3.0 years of life gained at 45 years in men and 1.5 to 2.3 years in women. The life gained was longest in DRRD for males and AMED for females. The significant associations remained when accounting for genetic susceptibility. Our findings underscore the advantages of healthy dietary patterns in prolonging life expectancy, regardless of longevity genes.
