What You Eat at Age 40 Could Make All the Difference When You’re 70

What you eat today can have a lasting effect on your health.

Recent research from Harvard — presented at a meeting of the American Society for Nutrition — concludes that people who followed a healthy diet from their 40s onward were 43% to 84% more likely to be healthy physically and mentally at age 70 and older.

For the study, researchers analyzed dietary and medical data on 106,000 people that was collected over several decades.

All of them were free of chronic diseases at the start of the study period, in 1986. Nearly half had died by 2016, and only 9.2% made it to age 70 with good physical, cognitive and mental health and without chronic diseases.

The diet with the strongest correlation to healthy aging — which researchers define as the absence of disease and ability to live independently while enjoying a good quality of life — was the alternative healthy eating index. This index heavily reflects the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

These guidelines encourage Americans to dedicate half their plate to fruits and vegetables, focus on whole fruits, vary vegetables, ensure half of consumed grains are whole grains, vary protein intake, and switch to low-fat or fat-free dairy products. The guide also encourages Americans to eat foods and beverages with less added sugars, saturated fat and sodium.

The researchers found that the people who followed this type of diet most closely were 84% more likely to achieve healthy aging than those who were the worst about following the diet.

Diets that also had a strong association with healthier aging include:

• The empirical dietary index for hyperinsulinemia diet (associated with a 78% greater likelihood of healthy aging)
• Planetary health diet (68%)
• Alternative Mediterranean diet (67%)
• Dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) diet (66%)
• The Mediterranean-DASH intervention for neurodegenerative delay (MIND) diet (59%)
• The empirical dietary inflammatory pattern (58%)

Researchers say there was a smaller, but still notable, association with the healthful plant-based diet (43%) as well.

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Anne-Julie Tessier, a researcher at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says the planetary health diet stuck out most to her. This diet emphasizes consuming more plant-based foods than anything else.

“The fact that it emerged as one of the leading dietary patterns associated with healthy aging is particularly interesting because it supports that we can eat a diet that may benefit both our health and the planet,” she says in a summary of the study findings.

All the various dietary plans and names aside, an increased likelihood of healthier aging was generally associated with diets that have a substantial amount of fruits, vegetables, unsaturated fats, nuts, legumes, whole grains and low-fat dairy.