Healthy Diets Including Plant-Based Eating Linked to Up to 3 Extra Years of Life, Whatever Your Genes

Eating well in midlife is linked to up to three extra years of life, whatever your genes, according to a UK Biobank study published in Science Advances on February 13. A healthy plant-based diet was one of five eating patterns linked to longer life.

Researchers at Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, in Wuhan, China followed 103,649 UK adults for a median of 10.6 years. All five patterns, the healthful plant-based diet index, the Mediterranean diet, DASH, the Alternate Healthy Eating Index and a diabetes risk reduction diet, were linked to lower death rates.

Moving from the bottom fifth to the top fifth of diet scores was linked to 1.9 to 3.0 extra years of life at 45 for men and 1.5 to 2.3 years for women, with the biggest gains for the diabetes-prevention diet in men and the Mediterranean diet in women. The links held whatever people's genetic predisposition to a long life.

"It is never too late to improve your diet, as following an optimal diet at age 80 is associated with a gain of up to two years of life for men, compared to those who have a very poor diet at that age, and up to one year for women," said Professor Fernando Rodríguez Artalejo of the Autonomous University of Madrid, commenting to the Science Media Centre Spain.

What these patterns share is plenty of vegetables, fruit, whole grains, legumes and nuts.

It echoes the largest study to link meat with disease and last summer's finding that a healthy plant-based diet is linked to a lower risk of multiple chronic diseases.

Your genes are not your destiny, but your dinner might be.