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February 13, 2026<\/p>\n
3 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Following one of these five diets may be the key to living longer<\/p>\n It\u2019s no surprise that eating fruits and vegetables is good for you, but diets that are rich in these foods could boost longevity, too, according to a new study<\/p>\n By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n There is perhaps one thing that the Internet, your mom and scientists agree on: eating lots of fruits and vegetables is good for you. But according to a new study, following any one of five diets that are rich in these foods and some others could also boost your lifespan.<\/p>\n By following more than 100,000 people in the U.K. for years, researchers found that people whose food choices scored high in any one of five diet categories tended to live longer than people who scored the lowest. Specifically, the team found that even after adjusting for confounding factors\u2014such as whether people smoked, how much exercise they took and what their education and ethnicity was\u2014study participants who tended to eat according to any one of the five diets were 18 to 24 percent less likely to die of any cause.<\/p>\n For women, that roughly translated into an extra 1.5 to 2.3 years of life. And for men, it added about 1.9 to three years. The findings were published on Friday in the journal Science Advances.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n The five diets that were singled out by the researchers centered on fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and whole grains, with minimal processed foods. Fiber intake, in particular, showed a strong association with longevity, while consuming lots of sugary beverages was linked to higher all-cause mortality.<\/p>\n Marion Nestle, a nutrition and food studies professor emerita at New York University, says the results are not a surprise but that they add to the evidence for healthy eating.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s always amazing to me that it takes research of this depth, complexity and size to conclude that eating heathy diets is good for health and longevity,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe study also confirms that there are lots of ways of eating healthfully, and they all work,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n The diets in the study were more academic measures than a set of eating rules like those used in popular diets such as the \u201cketo\u201d or \u201cPaleo\u201d diets. They included the following categories:<\/p>\n Alternate Healthy Eating Index: A system that encourages foods known to combat chronic disease.<\/p>\n Alternate Mediterranean Diet: A system that is similar to the Mediterranean diet but tweaked to incorporate foods eaten by people who live outside of the region.<\/p>\n Healthful Plant-Based Diet Index: A diet-scoring mechanism that rewards plant-based eating and encourages people to consume fewer animal products.<\/p>\n Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension: An eating plan that focuses on heart-heathy foods that may help lower blood pressure.<\/p>\n Diabetes Risk Reduction Diet: A system that cuts back on high-glycemic foods\u2014or foods known to rapidly raise blood sugar levels.<\/p>\n The researchers also considered the participants\u2019 genetic predisposition to longevity. Interestingly, participants with higher odds of living longer tended to see less of a benefit from a healthy diet than people who were dealt a worse hand of genetic cards, notes Sofiya Milman, director of Human Longevity Studies at the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n She notes that following a healthy diet is generally a good idea regardless, however.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a well-conducted association study,\u201d says Sai Das, a professor of nutrition science at Tufts University, who was also not involved in the research. The study wasn\u2019t a controlled experiment in which participants strictly adhered to the five diets, so it isn\u2019t possible to say that their diets caused them to live longer. But the large sample size does add strength to the findings, she says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve always known that diet is an important determinant of chronic disease,\u201d Das says, adding that the diet categories in the study were \u201cvery well grounded in the science.\u201d<\/p>\n There are several other limitations to the work. The study authors noted in the paper that they were not able to rule out potential confounding factors such as people\u2019s access to health care or general \u201chealth consciousness.\u201d And because the study was done in the U.K., it\u2019s unclear if the findings would apply to people living in other countries.<\/p>\n Das recommends not sweating the specifics about how much diet adds to your lifespan. \u201cIt\u2019s not about betting on 1.5 versus 1.7\u201d years, she says. Instead, by adding in more healthy foods to your diet, \u201cthe point is that you are going to live longer.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 13, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Following one of these five diets may be the key to living longer It\u2019s no surprise that eating fruits and vegetables is good for you, but diets that are rich in these foods could boost longevity, too, according to a new study By Jackie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[8175,788,1317,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-44435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-diets","9":"tag-key","10":"tag-living","11":"tag-longer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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