If your mother ever told you, “You can’t have any dessert until you eat your veggies,” you may not be surprised to hear that fruits and vegetables are good for your health.
Still, it’s nice to know that science has your mother’s back (you know, like the rest of us, scientists also have mothers). A recent study by researchers from the Netherlands found that people who ate more fruits and vegetables lived longer and had a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.
Throughout the study, which involved over 450,000 participants from 10 European countries, people who ate the most fruits and vegetables were 11 percent less likely to die than those who ate the least. Putting it another way, those who filled their plates with the leafy and colorful lived an extra 1.12 years on average.
It’s a small change, but one worth mentioning, especially since the bulk of the difference was the result of a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease for veggie lovers. In the U.S., heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making fruits and vegetables a useful tool in the battle against this silent killer.
Fruits and Vegetables Improve Health
Regardless of how many fruits and vegetables people ate, eating more improved their health. For every extra 200 grams per day of fruits and vegetables, the risk of death dropped by 3 to 6 percent. This, however, plateaued at 400 grams per day (about 3 cups of chopped carrots or apples), meaning that super-herbivores may not gain any extra health benefits.
When the researchers looked at just vegetables, eating an extra 100 grams per day lowered the risk of death by 3 to 5 percent. This connection was stronger for raw vegetables compared to cooked ones, possibly due to the loss of nutrients and digestive enzymes during the cooking process. There was no similar increase in health benefits when people ate more fruit, although fruits still contributed to a lower risk of death.
The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, also examined the effects of eating fruits and vegetables on cancer. Unlike cardiovascular disease, the researchers found no link between eating more fruits and vegetables and the risk of dying from cancer. While the study followed participants for up to 18 years, this still may not have been long enough to see the effect of diet on cancer, which can take longer to develop than cardiovascular disease.
Overall, people benefitted from eating more fruits and vegetables, but some groups showed an even greater response to a healthy diet, including smokers, obese people and heavy drinkers. All of these conditions have been shown to increase oxidative stress in the body, which can be neutralized by the antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables.
Fitting Fruits and Vegetables Into Overall Diet
In a reverse fashion, previous studies have shown that eating more red meat may increase your chance of dying. Is this the result of extra servings of red meat displacing vegetables from your plate? Possibly, but the current study didn’t look at this question specifically.
The Dutch researchers, though, found that the healthy boost from eating fruits and vegetables did not depend upon your total calorie intake. So even if you eat vegetables on top of your current meal (instead of swapping bacon for broccoli), you can still reap the benefits.
While the study provides some insight into how healthy fruits and vegetables are—especially for smokers, drinkers and the obese—it cannot say for certain that eating fruits and vegetables will make you live longer. People who eat healthy may also exercise more, deal better with stress or have regular visits to the doctor.
Fruits and vegetables, though, are an important piece of a complex puzzle that makes up our health. Besides, no study has shown that eating fruits and vegetables are bad for your health, so why wait? Chop up some vegetables, start snacking, and make your mother proud.
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References
- Leenders, M., Sluijs, I., Ros, M., Boshuizen, H., Siersema, P., Ferrari, P., Weikert, C., Tjonneland, A., Olsen, A., Boutron-Ruault, M., Clavel-Chapelon, F., Nailler, L., Teucher, B., Li, K., Boeing, H., Bergmann, M., Trichopoulou, A., Lagiou, P., Trichopoulos, D., Palli, D., Pala, V., Panico, S., Tumino, R., Sacerdote, C., Peeters, P., van Gils, C., Lund, E., Engeset, D., Redondo, M., Agudo, A., Sanchez, M., Navarro, C., Ardanaz, E., Sonestedt, E., Ericson, U., Nilsson, L., Khaw, K., Wareham, N., Key, T., Crowe, F., Romieu, I., Gunter, M., Gallo, V., Overvad, K., Riboli, E., & Bueno-de-Mesquita, H. (2013). Fruit and Vegetable Consumption and Mortality: European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition American Journal of Epidemiology DOI: 10.1093/aje/kwt006
- Sun, Q. (2012). Red Meat Consumption and MortalityResults From 2 Prospective Cohort Studies Archives of Internal Medicine, 172 (7) DOI: 10.1001/archinternmed.2011.2287
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