Diet And Death Rates

In a large, U.S. based study, plant based diets and then Mediterranean diets had the lowest death rates overall, followed by those with generally healthy diets, although those diets were only marginally better than any kind of healthy diet. But the Mediterranean diet and the modern healthy eating index were also associated with lower rates of neurodegenerative diseases like dementia.

This prospective cohort study included initially healthy women from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS; 1984-2020) and men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS; 1986-2020).

Exposures Healthy Eating Index 2015 (HEI-2015), Alternate Mediterranean Diet (AMED) score, Healthful Plant-based Diet Index (HPDI), and Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI). . . .

The final study sample included 75,230 women from the NHS (mean [SD] baseline age, 50.2 [7.2] years) and 44,085 men from the HPFS (mean [SD] baseline age, 53.3 [9.6] years). During a total of 3,559,056 person-years of follow-up, 31,263 women and 22,900 men died. 

When comparing the highest with the lowest quintiles, the pooled multivariable-adjusted HRs of total mortality were 0.80 for AHEI  (95% CI, 0.77-0.82), 0.81  for HEI-2015 (95% CI, 0.79-0.84), 0.82 for AMED score (95% CI, 0.79-0.84), and 0.86 for HPDI (95% CI, 0.83-0.89) (P < .001 for trend for all). 

All dietary scores were significantly inversely associated with death from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and respiratory disease. The AMED score and AHEI were inversely associated with mortality from neurodegenerative disease. The inverse associations between these scores and risk of mortality were consistent in different racial and ethnic groups, including Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White individuals.

From JAMA.