Does a healthful eating pattern extend life?

Nearly everyone believes that an unhealthful diet has adverse consequences, including heightened risk for early death. A prospective cohort study was conducted to examine the associations of dietary scores for 4 healthy eating patterns with risk of total and cause-specific mortality, which was published in the JAMA Internal Medicine recently.

Analysis showed that, for each eating pattern, participants in the most-healthful quintile had significantly lower risks for death (14%–20% lower) than participants in the least-healthful quintiles.

Healthful eating also was associated inversely with death due to cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, and neurodegenerative disease. Similar results were obtained among various racial and ethnic groups.