Forget eating habits: beer, wine and chocolate can help you live longer

Healthy eating can become a thing of the past, as a study reveals that beer, wine and chocolate could help you live longer.

According to scientists, a simple diet consisting of food and drinks fights inflammation and reduces by almost 20% the risk of premature death in the middle-aged and the elderly.

This means a lot of fruits and vegetables, wholemeal bread, breakfast cereals, low-fat cheese, olive and canola oil and nuts.

But you do not have to be always healthy – these foods can end with a snack bar, tea and coffee or a glass of wine or beer.

Research also shows that if you want to live longer, you should avoid foods that increase inflammation, including all forms of red meat, organ meats (haggis for example), soft drinks, sauces and other foods. biscuits.

The study of over 68,000 participants, aged 45 to 83, revealed that those who had a regular diet composed of anti-inflammatory drugs were 18% less likely to die within the next 16 years than those who consumed less.

After completing a questionnaire based on 11 anti-inflammatory foods, they were assigned a score from zero to 16 – the higher the score, the healthier the person.

Specifically, they had a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease (20%) and cancer (13%).

Curiously, the smokers who followed the diet had even greater benefits.

The results showed that they were almost a third less likely to die than smokers who did not follow the diet (measured during the course of the study).

But non-smokers who followed the diet should live nearly five years longer than smokers.

"We know that fruits, vegetables, tea, coffee, red wine, beer and chocolate are rich in antioxidants," said Professor Joanna Kaluza of Warsaw University of Life Sciences (WULS). ).

Wholegrain bread, breakfast cereals, vegetables and fresh, dry fruits are rich in dietary fiber; and olive oil and canola oil are rich sources of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are potentially beneficial to health because of their anti-inflammatory properties. "

While inflammation is the way the body heals when injured, chronic inflammation has been associated with serious illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and dementia.

Professor Kaluza said: "Adherence to a high-potency anti-inflammatory diet can reduce all-cause, cardiovascular and cancerous mortality and prolong survival, especially for current and former smokers.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to study an empirically-developed AIDI with respect to cause and cause mortality and to examine the differences in survival time associated with adherence to an anti-inflammatory regimen.

"The dose-response analysis showed that even partial adherence to the anti-inflammatory diet could have a beneficial effect on health."

With the help of national registries, his team analyzed 16,088 deaths among 68,273 participants, or 5,980 due to cardiovascular disease and 5,252 from cancer, the rest being attributable to from other causes.