Everything you put on your plate (which you have previously bought in the supermarket) has an important role in the chances you have of dying prematurely. A recent study, published in The Lancet, ensures that eating poorly is the leading cause of death worldwide. Even being above tobacco use or having high blood pressure. Did you think that eating few vegetables or fruits was so serious?
What dangers does eating badly cause?
The study involved adults over 25 years of age, who were analyzed in their food consumption habits from 1990 to 2017 in 195 countries. The researchers wanted to know how this affected an early death.
Interestingly, they found in 2017 that 11 million deaths (22%) worldwide were caused by poor diet. More specifically, 9 million were due to cardiovascular diseases, more than 900.000 to suffer cancers related to food, more than 330.000 per diabetes and more than 136.000 per kidney diseases.
On the other hand, other more well-known fatal risk factors are high blood pressure and tobacco use. These had 10 million and 4 million deaths, respectively. In addition, the researchers found that following a poor diet is related to living years with disability.
How was it identified that a diet was poor?
The researchers looked at three main factors that increased the risk of early death most strongly: a high sodium intake (more than 3 grams a day), low intake of whole grains (less than 125 grams a day) and a low fruit intake (less than 250 grams per day). Likewise, diets with little content in nuts, seeds and vegetables were also the ones that contributed the most to this increase in mortality.
In fact, nut consumption had the biggest difference between optimal and actual consumption: people only took 12% of the recommended intake (20 grams). Instead, the consumption of processed meat is 5% higher than the recommended consumption (90 grams).
Eating poorly can upset the body in many ways. Not only does it increase your risk of obesity, which carries numerous health risks (such as heart disease), but consuming too much of certain nutrients can harm your health in other ways as well. For example, eating little fruit is linked to an increased risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease; a diet high in sodium can increase the risk of stomach cancer; even low-fiber diets can influence the increase in colon cancer. So don't forget to eat a good diet to last more years of life.