Poor Diets Are Linked to 20% of All Deaths Worldwide, Study Says. But These Foods Could Help

If people around the world cleaned up their eating habits, it could potentially prevent one in five deaths globally, according to a new research review published in The Lancet. And the key to eating more healthfully isn’t depriving yourself, the research suggests — it’s adding more healthy foods. The sweeping review — which analyzed nearly 20 years of dietary data from 195 countries, alongside epidemiological studies about nutrition-related health risks and benefits — estimates that poor diets killed 11 million people around the world in 2017, mostly by contributing to cardiovascular disease and cancer. That makes subpar nutrition a bigger health threat than well-known risks like smoking, according to the research. “Diet is an equal-opportunity killer. People — independent of age, gender, country of residence and socioeconomic status — to some extent are affected by poor dietary habits,” says study co-author Dr. Ashkan Afshin, an assistant professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “Low intake of healthy foods and high intake of unhealthy foods is the leading cause of mortality, globally and in many countries.” Eating too much sodium — which is linked to high blood pressure and heart conditions — was the largest cause of diet-related death globally, the researchers found. But on the whole, “the main problem we see ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Diet/Nutrition Source Type: news