NBC NEWS – If you eat well now, you may live better later. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables, whole grains and unsaturated fats in midlife can improve the chances of good mental, physical and cognitive health decades later, a new report shows.
A study presented at a major nutrition conference Tuesday builds on years of research that a daily diet filled with highly nutritious foods can reduce the risk of developing common chronic diseases and help maintain cognitive functioning in older age.
Harvard researchers analyzed 30 years of data on over 106,000 participants from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. The study included 70,467 women and 36,464 men. At the beginning of the study in 1986, the participants were at least 39 years old and free of chronic disease.
As part of the long-term study, the participants filled out an extensive food frequency questionnaire every four years, from 1986 to 2010, registered dietician Anne-Julie Tessier, lead author and research associate at Harvard School of Public Health, said.
The Harvard researchers tracked every participant’s personal diet over time to see how well they matched to eight highly nutritious dietary patterns.
The diets they compared the food questionnaires to included:
The DASH diet, a meal plan intended to prevent or lower blood pressure by focusing on vegetables, fruits and whole grains. The eating plan, developed by the National Institutes of Health, is considered a flexible diet because it doesn’t eliminate any food groups and also helps with weight loss.
The alternative healthy eating index (AHEI) — which closely adheres to to the U.S. dietary guidelines by encouraging more legumes, nuts and vegetables and lower amounts of red meat and processed meats. The research found the strongest correlation between the AHEI diet and healthier aging, Tessier said.
The planetary health diet, an eating plan that minimizes animal products and emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats …
