Longevity foods

A handful of specific foods--if eaten every day--can increase life expectancy by as much as 6.6 years.

It has long been known that some individual foods--garlic and red wine, for example--can increase life-span by a certain amount. But a new study suggests that the longevity benefits of these foods are cumulative. In other words, you can enjoy an additional longevity benefit for each of these foods that you add to your daily diet.

The optimum longevity diet, which was dubbed the "polymeal" by the researchers, includes four servings of fish per week and a daily intake of wine, dark chocolate, fruits and vegetables, almonds and garlic.

The group reviewed the literature on how much each food cuts heart disease, blood pressure or cholesterol levels. A daily intake of 150 milliliters (mL) of wine, for instance, reduces the incidence of heart disease by 32 percent, They then worked out the combined effect of all these foods. Men who adopted the polymeal diet lived an average of 6.6 years longer than those who didn't. In addition, they enjoyed 9 more cardiovascular disease-free years during that lifetime than those not on the polymeal diet. The corresponding differences in women were 4.8 and 8.1, respectively.

The international team of researchers believes that the polymeal diet is a safe, effective and nonpharmacological way to reduce deaths from cardiovascular disease and increase life expectancy. The study appeared in the December 18, 2004 issue of the British Medical Journal.

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