Globally, one in five deaths is associated with poor nutrition

In the global burden of disease study that tracks consumption patterns of 15 dietary factors from 1990 to 2017 in 195 countries, people in almost every region of the world could benefit from a rebalancing of their diets to consume optimal amounts of various foods and nutrients. The lancet.

The study estimates that one in five deaths worldwide – equivalent to 11 million deaths – is badociated with poor nutrition, and that diet contributes to a range of chronic diseases in humans around the world.

In 2017, diets low in foods, such as whole grains, fruits, nuts and seeds, caused more deaths than diets high in foods such as trans fats, sugary drinks and high levels of diets. red meat and processed.

The authors state that their findings highlight the urgent need for coordinated global efforts to improve the diet, through collaboration with various sectors of the food system and policies that promote a balanced diet.

Overall, in 2017, about 11 million deaths were attributed to poor nutrition. Diets high in sodium, low in whole grains and low in fruit together accounted for more than half of global dietary deaths in 2017.

The causes of these deaths include 10 million deaths from cardiovascular disease, 913,000 deaths from cancer, and nearly 339,000 deaths from type 2 diabetes. The number of dietary deaths increased from 8 million in 1990 to mainly because of population growth and aging.

The largest deficits in optimal intake were observed for nuts and seeds, milk, whole grains, and the largest excesses for sugary drinks, processed meat and sodium. On average, the world consumed only 12% of the recommended amount of nuts and seeds (averaging about 3 g per day, compared to 21 g per day), and drank about ten times the recommended amount of drinks sweet (49 g average). , compared to 3g recommended).

At the regional level, high sodium intake (greater than 3 g per day) was the main risk of death and illness in China, Japan and Thailand.

In Bangladesh, the main dietary risk was low fruit consumption (less than 250 g per day). High consumption of red meat (more than 23 g per day), processed meat (more than 2 g per day), trans fat (more than 0.5% of total daily energy) and sugary drinks (more 3 g per day) was at the bottom of the rankings. dietary risks related to death and disease for highly populated countries.

The scale of food-related diseases shows that many existing campaigns have not been effective and the authors are calling for new interventions in the food system to rebalance diets worldwide.

Importantly, they note that the changes must be sensitive to the environmental effects of the global food system in order to avoid adverse effects on climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, depletion of reserves, and Fresh water and soils.