An ‘optimal diet’ adds a decade to your life

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WE ALL KNOW THAT EATING better can increase longevity – but a new study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, suggests the life-lengthening properties of an optimal diet may be even bigger than previously thought. If you started eating an optimal diet at age 20, you could add 10 to 13 years to your life, found researchers. If, instead, your twenties were a blur of late-night takeaways and one-too-manys, don’t despair. Begin an optimal diet aged 60 and you’ll still gain eight to nine years.

So, what is an optimal diet? The researchers suggest that, compared with a standard western diet, it’s one with an increased amount of fish, legumes, whole grains, nuts, fruit and veg, as well as less red and processed meat and fewer sugar-sweetened drinks and refined grains. Some scientists, however, are not totally convinced by the study. Norwegian dietitian Vegard Lysne wrote that the research failed to account for ‘socio-economic status and health consciousness, which are major determinants of longevity’.