Want to live longer? Try these six foods

A new study shows that people who eat certain foods that at lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality than those who do not.  

The study was published in the Oxford University Press's European Heart Journal, a peer-reviewed medical journal of cardiology.

The relationship between diet and mortality and CVD is well known. "Diet scores" provide quantitative, empirical information showing this relationship. Indeed, as the study notes, previous studies reveal "a higher diet score being associated with lower mortality [and lower] CVD."

One study from Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) created a diet score that, according to the European Heart Journal study, "showed slightly stronger associations with death or CVD than several other common diet scores."

The latter study set out to use data from the former and replicate it among hundreds of thousands of people across 80 different countries in order to, as the authors write, "develop a healthy diet score that is associated with health outcomes and is globally applicable."

How do better diet scores help with mortality, cardiovascular disease?

Researchers designed this study as a long-term study and developed a healthy score in over one hundred thousand participants with all the information on their diets and included "all outcome events known."

Ultimately, one of the main things that the authors of the study found was that "in a combined analysis of data from six international studies involving 245 000 people from 80 countries, a diet comprised of higher amounts of fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes, fish, and [mainly whole-fat] dairy foods is associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality in all world regions."

That these foods are associated with lower mortality and CVD is not revolutionary. They seem to fit in what has traditionally been understood to make up a healthy diet. Furthermore, the researchers note that the impact these foods have on mortality and CVD is particularly prominent in lower-income counties. This is likely indicative of decreased access to nutritious, high quality foods in these countries.