Fruits and Vegetables Add Years to Your Life – Literally

We've been
told for years – and by pretty much everyone involved with either nutrition or
health care – that eating more fruits and vegetables is good for you and can
improve your life.  Well, it turns out that these people weren't telling us the
whole story.  Eating more fresh fruits and vegetables can actually extend your life, and add years to it.

That's the
message of a study published recently in the Journal of Epidemiology &
Community Health.  The researchers used data from the Health Survey for England to
analyze the eating habits of over 65,000 people considered representative of
the English population between the years 2001 and 2013.  What they found was
that the more fresh fruits and vegetables these people ate – at any age – the
less likely they were to die.

This study is the first to
compare the consumption of fruits and vegetables with rates of cancer, heart
disease, and all-cause deaths in a nationally-representative population.  It is
also the first to link health benefits to per-portion quantities of fruits and
vegetables, and the first to identify the types of fruits and vegetables with
the most benefit.

The figures are compelling and
consistent.  Eating 1-3 servings of fresh fruit and vegetables per day decreases
your risk of death in the three categories (cancer, heart disease, and all
causes) by 11%, 9%, and 14%, respectively, compared with eating none.  Eating
3-5 servings per day decreases these risks by 19%, 18%, and 29%, respectively.
Eating 7 or more servings of fruit and vegetables per day decreases your risk
of dying from these causes by a whopping 25%, 31%, and 42%, respectively.  I
know I’m a bit of a nutrition dork, but those numbers are amazing, aren’t they?

The researchers also found that
fresh vegetables have a more significant effect on longevity and lowered
mortality risk than fruits, with each daily vegetable portion added to the diet
lowering mortality risk by 16%.  Eating salad lowered mortality risk by 13% for
each portion added daily, and fruit lowered mortality risk by 4% for each added
portion.

Interestingly,
the researchers found no benefits to longevity from fruit juice, as opposed to
fresh, whole fruit.  Furthermore, canned or frozen fruit appeared to actually increase risk of death by 17% per
portion.  The researchers attributed this to the fact that most canned and
frozen fruits contain high sugar levels, and that the negative health impacts
of the sugar may outweigh any benefits.

We all know
that eating fruit and vegetables is healthy, but the size of the effect is
staggering.  The clear message here is that the more fruit and vegetables you
eat, the less likely you are to die at any age.  Vegetables have a larger effect
than fruit, but fruit still makes a real difference. If you're happy to snack
on carrots or other vegetables, then that is a great choice, but if you fancy
something sweeter, a banana or any fruit will also do you good.

It’s time to take that first step to improve
not only the quality of your life, but, as this study shows, the quantity of
life that your future holds!