Methods : The researchers used selected dietary risk factors and nutritional epidemiology and assessed adults aged 25 years and older in the USA for 15 dietary risk factors .
Results : The results were quite interesting ; for example , a corned beef sandwich with tomato sauce and onion was found to reduce life by 71 minutes , whilst a hot dog sandwich reduced life by 35 minutes . The authors attribute this to the damaging effects of processed meat that outweigh the benefits associated with tomatoes and onions . On the bright side , a serving of sardines with a tomato sauce base added 82 minutes to an individual ’ s life , while a peanut butter and jelly sandwich increased life by 33 minutes .
The article then describes hot dogs , breakfast sandwiches , burgers and red meat as being almost exclusively health negative , and nuts , peanut butter and jelly ( jam to non-Americans ) sandwiches , legumes , seafood , fruits , snack bars , ready-to-eat cereals and nonstarchy vegetables as health positive .
Pros : This is a very interesting approach by the authors to quantify foods by ‘ plus or minus ’ minutes of healthy life . I can ’ t imagine their results at this point in time being a requirement on all food labels , though perhaps this is the start of a new trend in food labelling ? The authors also did an analysis on the environmental impact of the foods they analysed ( e . g . water use in production , impact on global warming ).
Cons : The reader is advised to be careful to interpret the findings with some good common sense . For example , if a food is identified as being healthy , then eating it exclusively at the expense of a balanced diet would be detrimental to health . Additionally , while this study is a very promising way to look at the foods we eat , we should remember that there could be errors or factors that are not adjusted for as it is a fairly novel analysis . In fact , a few of the rankings seem a bit surprising , so a degree of caution should be exercised . If a food that is being scored as particularly healthy , for example , does not seem to be healthy intuitively ( some of the high scoring processed foods for instance ), caution would be advised before significantly increasing the intake levels in the diet .
There are many papers that support the findings in Stylianou and colleagues ’ research . For example Budhathoki et al ( 2019 ) investigated animal versus plant protein on mortality in 70,000 Japanese adults . They found that animal protein has no clear association with total or cause-specific mortality . However , higher plant protein intake ( by only 3 %) was associated with a lower total and cardiovascular disease-related mortality . Furthermore , they reported that replacement of red meat protein ( or processed meat protein ) with plant protein was associated with lower total , cancer-related , and cardiovascular disease-related mortality . This lends credibility to Stylianou and colleagues ’ findings .
The results clearly illustrate the message that eating unhealthy foods can reduce your lifespan , while eating healthy foods can potentially increase it . This is the first time I have ever seen an article which attempts to quantify minutes of life added or lost based upon specific foods consumed . I am reluctant at this point to never eat a hot dog or burger again as there are plenty of long lived Americans , the country with the highest annual meat consumption per capita ( followed closely by Australia ) - though of course the USA does have a very high obesity rate ( more than one in three people are obese ).
Although the accuracy of the allocated minutes may be debatable and impossible to accurately quantify , having these numbers so starkly asserted does beg the question , would you risk trading 35 minutes of your life for a hot dog ? Food for thought indeed .
THE QUICK READ
• Researchers conducted a study in which they identified foods that either add duration to your life , or take it away
• The researchers used selected dietary risk factors and nutritional epidemiology and assessed adults aged 25 years and older in the USA for 15 dietary risk factors
• Some of the results were quite surprising , with some everyday food items deemed to reduce life by over an hour and others adding similar duration
• Processed foods and red meat were generally categorised as unhealthy while plant-based foods , cereals and seafood were deemed to be life-adding .
REFERENCES
Assoc Prof Mike Climstein , PhD FASMF FACSM FAAESS AEP Dr Climstein is one of Australia ’ s leading Accredited Exercise Physiologists . He is a faculty member in Clinical Exercise Physiology , Sport & Exercise Science at Southern Cross University ( Gold Coast ).
Dr Joe Walsh , PhD Joe has worked in a number of large international research teams with study findings presented around the world . In addition to working in the university sector , he is a director of Sport Science Institute .
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