If you want to live a long life, it's high time you set aside the burger and fries as a new study has proven once and for all that a Western diet leads to an early death.
A study of more than 5,000 civil servants found those who ate the most fried and sweet food, processed and red meat, white bread and butter and cream doubled their risk of premature death or ill health in old age.
The impact of diet on specific age-related diseases has been studied extensively, but few investigations have adopted a more holistic approach to determine the association of diet with overall health at older ages," the study's lead investigator, Tasnime Akbaraly, a researcher at France's national department of health (INSERM), said in a statement. "The 'Western-type' diet identified in our cohort is very close to the original 'Western' pattern defined in the American population, which has been shown to be associated with higher risk of [musculoskeletal] inflammation."
Dr. Akbaraly examined whether diet, assessed in midlife, using dietary patterns and adherence to the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), is associated with physical ageing 16 years later.
Dr Akbaraly added: "We showed that following specific dietary recommendations such as the one provided by the AHEI may be useful in reducing the risk of unhealthy ageing, while avoidance of the 'Western-type foods" might actually improve the possibility of achieving older ages free of chronic diseases."
The study, published in the American Journal of Medicine, claimed that there is an inverse relationship between Western eating and healthy lifestyles: "While our results indicate that low adherence to healthy recommendations of the AHEI guidelines is associated with increased premature death, the 'Western-type' diet significantly reduced the likelihood of achieving ideal health at older ages, which incorporates cardiovascular, metabolic, musculoskeletal, respiratory, mental, and cognitive components."
