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Plant-based eating prolongs lifespan by two years

23 April 2015

Type:

Original research
Award
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2014 Alpro Foundation Award for best scientific publication

Dr Ellen Struijk, the University Medical Center in Utrecht, The Netherlands

The first ever Alpro Foundation Award winner was Dr Ellens Struijk, whose research demonstrated that a higher adherence to a plant-based Mediterranean dietary pattern was associated with a lower disease burden as assessed by Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs).

DALYs are the sum of years lost due to disability and poor ill health as well as premature mortality and are used as an indicator of the total burden caused by diseases.

Study design

Dr Struijk investigated the association between lifestyle and disease burden among 33,066 healthy participants (20 – 70 years) from the Dutch EPIC cohort. Participants were followed on average for 12.4 years.

Key findings

People following a ‘Mediterranean-type diet’ who also exercised, didn’t smoke and were of a healthy body weight, lived on average two years longer in good health than those who didn’t follow this lifestyle (DALYs: -2.13; 95% CI: -2.65, -1.62).

Conclusion

A healthy plant-based diet, such as a Mediterranean diet, with an emphasis on vegetables, fruit, nuts, olive oil and legumes and a limited intake of meat, saturated fat and alcohol, can have an important impact on health.

Read the original study.

Find out more about Alpro Foundation Awards.

Reference

  1. Struijk E et al, Dietary patterns in relation to disease burden expressed in Disability-Adjusted Life Years. Am J Clin Nutr 2014;100:1158–65. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.113.082032

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