How Can Food Increase Our Life Expectancy?
Article by Olive Rosenvinge
With the ever-increasing popularity of fad diets and ‘nutri-nonsense’, it’s no wonder we’ve lost our way with nutrition, health and lifestyle. Over 63% of adults in the UK - that’s approximately 35 million people - are classified as overweight or obese (1).
The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on our population has seen more and more people becoming increasingly aware and interested in what we can do to improve our nutrition and health as a whole, to maximise our quality of life.
What can I add to my diet to help increase life expectancy?
If we follow and adopt a more mindful approach to food and diet, we may indeed achieve this longevity and good health as we age that so many of us desire.
You may have heard this many times before but by including plants on your plate you can reap the rewards by optimising not only your health and energy levels, but also lengthening your lifespan.
Some plant foods include:
Fruits and veggies
Wholegrains like barley, buckwheat and brown rice
Legumes such as chickpeas, lentils, walnuts and pistachios
Nuts and seeds
Spices and herbs
One study has found that by eating 200g of chickpeas per day (that’s just less than a can) we could add an extra two and a half years to our life (2).
It may also be beneficial to limit our consumption of red and processed meats like sausages and deli meats, and move away from a typical western diet, which contains high amounts of saturated fat, refined grains, sugar and salt. This pattern of eating is similar to a Mediterranean style diet which is well-researched for it’s benefits for health, including reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, and mental health concerns.
It may be as simple as adding more plants into your daily diet
A recent study conducted by the University of Bergen, Norway, revealed that it’s the diversity of these plant foods that is key. By including more plant-based foods, particularly wholegrains, nuts, and legumes, as young adults, we can add as much as a decade to our lives (3). These projected gains become a little smaller the older we get, but they are still substantial. For example, at the age of 60, moving away from the typical ‘western diet’ - usually defined as a diet high in saturated fats and low in fibre - towards an optimal diet higher in plants, life expectancy could be increased by an average of 8 years for a woman, and 8.8 years for a man. Even at the age of 80, an addition of 3.4 years could be seen (3).
So, what we can take from this is that the earlier we make these easy dietary changes, the more we can optimise our health and longevity of life. You could try and bulk out pasta or curry sauces with some chickpeas or lentils, or an extra type of veg instead of using mince, adding a new herb and/or spice, fruit, or vegetable to the shopping list to try each week, or swap white bread/pasta/rice for wholegrain or wholewheat versions. These are easy and manageable swaps that you can do do help increase the amount of plants you have in your diet.
Why are plant-based foods so important for increasing diet diversity and our lifespan?
Well, it’s because they provide fibre.
Fibre is a complex carbohydrate which is not digested or absorbed by our bodies. Therefore, it doesn’t raise our blood sugar levels, as it inhibits hyperglycaemia, which in turn reduces our risk of developing type 2 diabetes – a condition which currently affects 4.9 million people in the UK (4).
There are 2 main types of fibre: soluble – the one that forms a gel-like substance within the colon due to its ability to dissolve in water, and insoluble – which is left unchanged as it passes through the digestive system.
Fibre is the food and goodness that the little gut bugs (bacteria) living within our digestive tract so desire and need. It’s our gut microbiota that’s responsible for the effective function of our brain, skin, hormones and even immunity, to name just a few!
However, because the fibre within plant-based foods isn’t broken down through our normal digestive process, it enters the large intestine, where our little gut bugs break it down and digest it for us through a process known as fermentation. Energy is extracted, which in turn, produces by-products like short-chain-fatty-acids known to have a wide range of roles within the body. These include cell signalling, provision of a vital source of energy for cells, anti-inflammatory properties, and a possible improvement in insulin sensitivity and weight management.
In fact, studies have revealed that there are over 100 different types of fibre, each providing their own unique beneficial effect on our bodies. For example, reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes, colon cancer and heart disease by lowering cholesterol levels, stabilising blood sugars and decreasing the absorption of fat within the diet (5).
Yet, most of us are consuming less than 20g of fibre a day, a whopping 10g below what is recommended, and more than 80g less than our ancestors did (6).
So, remember, to reap the benefits, the key to adding those precious years to your life could be as simple as consuming more lovely legumes like black beans, chickpeas and lentils, more wholegrains like brown rice, oats and rye, and more nuts like walnuts, cashews, pecans and pistachios. It’s never too late to start including these foods within our diets, but it’s important to remember that this doesn’t need to all be done in one go. Making small changes to your diet and gradually incorporating more fibre and plant diversity into each meal slowly over time will help make sure that you can maintain this way of eating.
This blog post was written by Olive, who is a final year Food Science and Nutrition (BSc) student from the University of Leeds. Her interests and hobbies include running, cooking and often hosting weekly dinner parties and events for her family and friends. She also loves to advise them on how we can all eat better to maximise our quality of life, and often in the process, debunk a few nutrition myths along the way! Her favourite nutrition topics include fibre and the gut, as well as sports nutrition for athletes and plant based eating. She hopes to become a nutritionist in the future, to help leading companies improve employee diets so they can feel better. You can find her on Instagram @lusciouslylivs.
References:
(1) https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/risk/overweight-and-obesity
(2) https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/280244
(3) https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003889
(4) https://www.diabetes.org.uk/professionals/position-statements-reports/statistics
(5) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6566984/
(6) https://www.naturesbest.co.uk/our-blog/plant-based-diets-how-to-transition-healthily/