WASHINGTON (CNN) – Five is your new lucky number.
That’s how many servings of fruits and vegetables you should eat every day to live the longest according to a new study from the American Heart Association that analyzed data from nearly 2 million adults worldwide.
Two of those five servings should be fruits – the other three should focus on vegetables, the study found.
“This amount is likely to provide the greatest benefit in terms of prevention of serious chronic disease and is a relatively achievable uptake for the general public,” said lead author Dr. Dong Wang, an epidemiologist and nutritionist at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said in a statement.
However, there were differences in benefits depending on the fruit or vegetable in question.
“We also found that not all fruits and vegetables provide the same benefits, even though current dietary recommendations generally cover all fruits and vegetables, including starchy vegetables, juices and potatoes,” Wang said.
For example, peas, corn, potatoes and other starchy vegetables were not associated with a reduced risk of death or specific chronic diseases.
Leafy green vegetables rich in beta-carotene and vitamin C, such as spinach, green leaf lettuce, and kale, did show benefits along with carrots.
In the fruit category, fruits packed with beta-carotene and vitamin C, like all berries and citrus fruits, also helped reduce the risk of death and chronic disease. Fruit juice didn’t work, however. Previous research has found that the fiber in whole fruits is key to any benefits.
“All of the evidence in the study should convince health professionals to eat more fruits and vegetables as an important nutritional strategy, and that citizens should embrace this,” wrote Dr. Naveed Sattar and Dr. Nita Forouhi in an accompanying editorial. publish in April.
The greatest benefit may come from encouraging those who rarely eat fruits or vegetables as diets rich in even modestly higher consumption of fruits and vegetables are beneficial.
–Dr. Naveed Sattar and Dr. Nita Forouhi
Sattar is a professor at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow; Forouhi leads the nutritional epidemiology program of the MRC Epidemiology Unit at Cambridge University. Neither was involved in the new study.
“The greatest benefit may come from encouraging those who rarely eat fruits or vegetables, as diets rich in even modestly higher fruit and vegetable consumption are beneficial,” they wrote.
Association, not cause and effect
The study, published Monday in the journal Circulation of AHA, was large and consisted of two parts. The first was an analysis of data from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, which followed more than 100,000 American men and women for 30 years. All participants completed a questionnaire about eating habits at the start of the studies; these questionnaires were updated every two to four years. That information was then compared with health and death records collected during the long-term studies.
The second part of the study was a meta-analysis of pooled data from 26 studies involving nearly 2 million participants from 29 countries and territories in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and the Americas. Those studies also compared self-reported fruit and vegetable intake with mortality rates.
People who ate five servings of fruits and vegetables per day had a 13% lower risk of death from any cause than those who ate only two servings of fruits and vegetables per day.
Eating five servings was also linked to a 12% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke.
They also had a 10% lower risk of death from cancer and a 35% lower risk of death from respiratory diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, than those who ate just two servings, the study found.
Only 5 servings?
Strangely, the study did not find any benefit in extending life by eating more than five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, which contradicts previous research in both animals and humans.
A 2017 study found a significant reduction in the risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer and premature death by eating 10 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. Animal studies found much lower immune responses in animals that ate two to three servings of fruits and vegetables per day than animals that ate five to nine servings per day.
“In the eight to nine servings per day, we saw the best effect (on immunity),” said study author Dr. Simin Meydani, senior scientist and leader of the nutritional immunology team at Tufts University’s Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center. on Aging.
Meydani pointed out that the new study relied on self-reported food intake, which relies on the participants’ ability to remember and be truthful in recording what they ate. Therefore, the new study could only show a link between five servings and better health – not cause and effect.
“It is mainly based on observational studies and dietary intake data, which I believe do not have the sensitivity to differentiate and determine the exact dose needed,” said Meydani, who was not involved in the study.
“To recommend that five servings of fruits and vegetables is the best dose, they will have to do a randomized controlled trial of disease outcomes or biomarkers of health, which has not been done in a systematic way,” said Meydani.
Few of us eat our fruits and vegetables
Dietary guidelines require adult women to eat at least 1.5 cups of fruits and 2.5 cups of vegetables every day. Men need more – 2 cups of fruit and 3.5 cups of vegetables daily.
Still, only 9% of American adults eat the suggested servings of vegetables and only 12% eat the recommended amount of fruit, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The American Heart Association recommends filling at least half your plate with fruits and vegetables at every meal,” said Dr. Anne Thorndike, chair of the American Heart Association’s nutrition committee, in a statement.
“This research provides strong evidence for the lifelong benefits of eating fruits and vegetables and suggests a target amount to be consumed daily for ideal health,” added Thorndike, who is also an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
How many servings of fruits and vegetables do you usually eat per day?
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