New research, recently published, has put into writing what nutritionists and researchers have been saying for years: faithfully following the Mediterranean diet can extend life expectancy. Those who base their eating habits on this regimen can gain an average of about two additional years of life: this is what the study, conducted by the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, suggests. The study analyzed and compared different diets, some of which could increase life expectancy by up to four additional years.
How the Research Was Conducted
The Mediterranean diet was already well known to be an essential ally for health, but further scientific confirmation can only be beneficial. A new study, published in Science Advances and coordinated by Yanling Lv of Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China, examined different dietary habits to understand how they affect an individual's longevity. To do so, they examined the dietary data of 103,649 people from the UK Biobank, one of the largest health archives in the world. The participants were monitored for approximately a decade, and the different dietary patterns were compared to estimate how much life expectancy increases for those who follow a healthy diet compared to those with less virtuous habits.
The five dietary patterns analyzed were: the Mediterranean diet, assessed using the Alternate Mediterranean Diet score (AMED), a scoring system that evaluates the level of adherence to the Mediterranean diet; the diabetes risk reduction diet; the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet, recommended for combating hypertension; a plant-based diet; and the AHEI (Alternative Healthy Eating Index), rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes and low in red and processed meat, soft drinks, sodium, and refined grains, developed to prevent chronic diseases. The goal was to evaluate how these dietary patterns affect mortality and life expectancy, while also taking genetic factors into account: the researchers analyzed the DNA of the various participants, evaluating 19 genetic variants associated with longevity. Furthermore, during the observation period, 4,314 people died, a figure which, combined with the other data at their disposal, allowed the researchers to establish how much life can be extended based on the diet, estimating life expectancy for men and women at around 45 years.
How Much Longer Can You Live?
The research team demonstrated that life expectancy can increase for those who follow one of the five dietary patterns analyzed, compared to those with less healthy habits. Specifically, men who followed the Mediterranean diet gained approximately 2.2 years of life, while for women the increase reached 2.3 years. The AHEI, on the other hand, is associated with the highest estimated increase in longevity, considering that it could extend life expectancy by up to 4.3 years in men and 3.2 in women. The diabetes risk reduction diet also led to an estimated increase of 3 years in men and 1.7 years in women, while a plant-based diet showed results of 2.1 and 1.9 years, respectively. Finally, for the DASH diet, the estimated data would be approximately 1.9 years for men and 1.8 for women.
The most interesting finding, as the study authors emphasize, concerns the genetic component: by analyzing the participants' DNA, the researchers were able to demonstrate that dietary habits can influence life expectancy independently of "longevity genes." In other words, a person with an unfavorable genetic predisposition can benefit from the quality of their diet, in terms of added years of life, regardless of their genetic makeup, as far as the genetic factors considered in the research are concerned.
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