Western diet not good for aging

By 19. April 2013Blog, Health, Nutrition, Risk Management

If you want to reach a plump old age with good “functionality” then eating a classic western diet made up of foods that are fried and sweet, processed and red meat, refined grains, and high-fat dairy products is not the way to do it.

That is the take home message from a paper to be published in the may edition of The American Journal of Medicine.

The researchers followed a group of middle aged people for 16 years and measured their adherence to the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), “originally designed to provide dietary guidelines with the specific intention to combat major chronic conditions such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.”

They found that those who did not adhere to the index and followed a more western diet increased their chances of an earlier death, caused by both cardiovascular and non cardiovascular events.

The press release is available from of The American Journal of Medicine website.