Eating More Beans, Whole Grains and Nuts and Less Meat Could Add Over a Decade to Your Life

Swapping a typical Western diet for one rich in beans, whole grains and nuts, with less red and processed meat, could add more than a decade to your life, a new modeling study estimates. For a 20-year-old in the US, the gain is 10.7 years for women and 13 years for men.

Researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway combined meta-analyses with Global Burden of Disease data to estimate how life expectancy changes with lasting shifts in eating. Their optimal diet also includes more fruit, vegetables and fish, and fewer sugary drinks and refined grains. The study is published in PLOS Medicine.

The biggest gains come from eating more legumes (about 2.2 to 2.5 years), whole grains (2.0 to 2.3) and nuts (1.7 to 2.0), and less red meat and processed meat (1.6 to 1.9 years each). It is never too late: switching at 60 could still add around eight years, and 80-year-olds could gain more than three. Even a halfway "feasible" diet could add six to seven years.

Understanding the relative health potential of different food groups could enable people to make feasible and significant health gains.

That is the authors, led by Professor Lars Fadnes, in the PLOS release. They have also put a free Food4HealthyLife calculator online.

It follows the finding that five servings of fruit and veg a day are linked to 13% lower risk of death and the study linking swapping red meat protein for plant protein to 13% lower risk of death.

A tin of beans might be the best investment you make this year.