Replacing red and processed meats, sugary drinks and refined grains with a diet rich in whole grains, vegetables, lean meats, fruits and nuts increases life expectancy by up to 13 years, new research says. Scientists indicate that the sooner the diet is changed, the better the prospect of more years of life.

Inadequate nutrition results in several health problems around the world and is associated with risk factors that cause approximately 11 million deaths per year.

In this new study, published in the journal Plos Medicine and signed by researchers from Norwegian institutions, the scientists used the GBD (Global Burden of Disease), an initiative that gathers data on the impact that risk factors, such as poor diet, have on the mortality rate in different countries — including Brazil.

In the country, for example, GBD data show that an inadequate diet is related to about 44% of deaths from cardiovascular complications and 26% of deaths from diabetes.

With information like this, the researchers investigated whether changing dietary habits could result in longer life expectancy for population groups in three regions of the globe: the United States, Europe and China.

“It’s an impact estimation research, so it doesn’t mean that these results are applicable to each individual, but it’s a population estimate”, says Aline de Carvalho, professor at the Nutrition Department at the USP School of Public Health (University of São Paulo ).

This estimate is made using the average years of life for four age groups — 20, 40, 60 and 80 years — in each of the three regions selected in the study. Then, the impacts that food had on mortality were observed as the researchers averaged the effect that certain foods had on life expectancy.

In addition to calculating the average for these foods separately, there was also a systematization in three types of diets.

One of them was called Western and was characterized by being rich in red meats, processed foods, sugary drinks and grains that were not whole grains — that is, a poor consumption pattern. Another model of diet was ideal and involved mostly healthy foods: whole grains, vegetables, lean meats and fruits. The third, named as viable, was in the middle of the other two types.

Each of these feeding models had its consequences organized in the years of life of the population. These values ​​were then applied to the life expectancy of the four groups that the study observed through the GBD and, in this way, it was possible to obtain the impact on the increment of years in the person’s life depending on the age at which he had started a healthier eating.

In estimating the American population, for example, the study observed that men who started the ideal diet at age 20 had an increase of 13 years in their life expectancy – in the case of men who had adopted this diet at age 80, this increase was of only 3.4 years.

Even if the gain in life expectancy is smaller as healthy eating is adopted later, the authors observed that the change has relevant impacts even among the elderly — an idea also defended by Carvalho.

“Always the change to a healthier diet is important, regardless of the age group of life. The sooner, the better. Since the change in habits can last throughout life”, he says.

In addition to the analyzes based on the three types of diet, the research also listed which foods would be the most important in increasing life expectancy separately: nuts, legumes and whole grains. Each of these foods, according to an estimate, could represent one more year of life for the person who incorporated at least one option in the diet from the age of 20 onwards.

Foods that were also considered healthy — such as fruit and fish — had a smaller positive effect than these other three. Among those with the most health risk, red or processed meat leads the list.

These results cannot necessarily be transferred to Brazil, as the study did not consider data from the country, emphasizes Carvalho. An example of this is in relation to legumes, such as beans, which were among the best foods.

The professor explains that this happens because, probably, there is not the consumption of an adequate amount of beans in the regions analyzed by the research, causing that adding them to the diet already causes a positive effect for the population. However, perhaps this would not be seen in the same way in Brazil since the local population has a greater habit of consuming the legume.

For this reason, studies of the same type with data from Brazil would be important, something that Carvalho and other researchers are already working on. She cites, for example, a survey being carried out to measure the impacts of food on the health of the Brazilian population and also on the environment.

“We are seeing how a diet can have an impact on improving health, which are the foods that we could increase or decrease, but that also have a positive effect on the environment”, he concludes, indicating that the study is still in progress. in preliminary stage.