{"id":38262,"date":"2010-12-27T12:03:15","date_gmt":"2010-12-27T17:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/?p=38262"},"modified":"2010-12-27T12:05:06","modified_gmt":"2010-12-27T17:05:06","slug":"eatin-a-healthy-diet-prolongs-life-in-seniors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/12\/eatin-a-healthy-diet-prolongs-life-in-seniors\/","title":{"rendered":"Eating a Healthy Diet Prolongs Life in Seniors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Eating a Healthy Diet Prolongs Life in Seniors\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/12\/eatin-a-healthy-diet-prolongs-life-in-seniors\/\" target=\"_self\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-38491\" title=\"food rainbow\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/food-rainbow.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"263\" \/><\/a>We have all heard the phrase &#8220;<a title=\"you are what you eat\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diets\/You_are_what_you_eat\/\" target=\"_self\">you are what you eat<\/a>,&#8221; and the more research that comes out on eating a\u00a0nutritious\u00a0diet, the more it seems that saying is really true! According to a study published in the January 2026 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, those who eat healthy foods live longer than those who don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>The major\u00a0indication\u00a0of this is that the leading causes of death in Americans has shifted from infectious diseases to chronic diseases, like cardiovascular disease and <a title=\"cancer and body fat\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/11\/new-way-to-prevent-cancer\/\" target=\"_self\">cancer<\/a> &#8212; illnesses that may be affected by diet. Researchers studied the eating patterns and mortality of more than 2,500 adults between the ages of 70 and 79 over a 10-year period. What did they find? That diets favoring certain foods were associated with longer lives.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers grouped the study participants into six different clusters according to what they ate a lot of: healthy foods; high-fat dairy products; meat, fried foods, and alcohol; breakfast cereal; refined grains; sweets and desserts.\u00a0The &#8220;healthy foods&#8221; group ate low-fat dairy products, fruit, whole grains, poultry, fish and vegetables, and had a lower consumption of meat, fried foods, sweets, high-calorie drinks and added fat.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>What did they find? After controlling for gender, age, race, education, physical activity, smoking and total calorie intake, the &#8220;high-fat dairy products&#8221; group had a whopping 40 percent higher risk of death than the &#8220;healthy foods&#8221; group. The &#8220;sweets and desserts&#8221; group had a 37 percent higher risk.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line? When older adults consume relatively high amounts of vegetables, fruit, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, poultry and fish, they may have a lower risk of mortality, researchers say. Also, the authors found that because a substantial percentage of older adults in the study fell into the &#8220;healthy foods&#8221; group, adherence to a nutritious diet appears to be a feasible and realistic recommendation, they say.<\/p>\n<p>Although the study was done on <a title=\"seniors and exercise\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/10\/senior-fitness-youre-never-too-old-to-exercise\/\" target=\"_self\">seniors<\/a>, this study is a good reminder that what we eat matters &#8212; no matter our age!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have all heard the phrase &#8220;you are what you eat,&#8221; and the more research that comes out on eating a\u00a0nutritious\u00a0diet, the more it seems that saying is really true! According to a study published in the January 2026 issue &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/12\/eatin-a-healthy-diet-prolongs-life-in-seniors\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3695,4333],"tags":[6525,3426,6117,345,163],"class_list":["post-38262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diet-and-nutrition","category-senior-health","tag-cancer-prevention","tag-disease","tag-disease-risk","tag-healthy-eating","tag-prevention"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38262"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38493,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38262\/revisions\/38493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}