A machine-learning analysis of Canadian dietary data linked a vegetable-rich eating pattern with substantially lower mortality and cardiovascular risk, translating to as much as 8.3 additional years of estimated life expectancy for women and 6.1 years for men.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A vegetable-rich eating pattern emphasizing foods such as onions, garlic, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peppers and legumes was associated with markedly lower mortality and cardiovascular risk in a machine-learning analysis of Canadian dietary data.
Researchers found that adults scoring highly on the vegetable-rich pattern had approximately a 51% lower risk of death from any cause and a 45% lower risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event compared with people who had low scores on the pattern.
At age 45, those differences translated into an estimated gain of as much as 8.3 years of life for women and 6.1 years for men, according to the study.
Rather than testing participants against a predefined diet such as the Mediterranean diet, researchers used machine learning to identify combinations of foods that naturally appeared together in the everyday diets of Canadian adults.
The analysis drew from two large Canadian nutrition surveys, with a subset of participants subsequently linked to hospital and mortality records through 2017.
The results add to previous research associating higher fruit and vegetable consumption with a lower risk of death from all causes.
Machine Learning Identifies Three Major Eating Patterns
The algorithm identified three broad dietary patterns among Canadian adults.
The first and most favorable was the vegetable-rich pattern.
It centered on allium vegetables such as onions, garlic and leeks; cruciferous vegetables including broccoli and cauliflower; orange and red vegetables such as carrots and bell peppers; legumes; vegetable oils; soup; pasta; and rice.
People with higher scores on the pattern also tended to consume less fast food.
The second pattern was characterized by high consumption of sugary beverages and low consumption of fruit.
Sugary drinks, refined grains and salty snacks were prominent within that pattern. Whole grains, whole fruit, water, yogurt, nuts and seeds were inversely associated with it, meaning people scoring highly on the sugary-beverage pattern tended to consume less of those foods.
Researchers identified a third pattern centered on a high-fat breakfast.
That diet was characterized by solid fats, coffee, sugar, processed meat, eggs, pancakes and waffles. Tea showed an inverse relationship with the pattern.
By allowing the algorithm to identify foods that clustered together rather than imposing an existing dietary model, researchers sought to capture how people actually combine foods in daily life.
Vegetable-Rich Pattern Associated With Lower Mortality
The strongest health associations appeared among adults whose diets most closely resembled the vegetable-rich pattern.
High scores were associated with approximately 51% lower all-cause mortality and a roughly 45% reduction in cardiovascular events compared with low scores.
When researchers translated those associations into life-expectancy estimates at age 45, women with high adherence to the pattern gained as much as an estimated 8.3 years, while men gained as much as 6.1 years.
The high-fat breakfast pattern produced a different result.
Researchers found no statistically significant association between that pattern and either overall mortality or cardiovascular disease. It was, however, associated with a modest reduction in estimated life expectancy.
Women with higher scores on the high-fat breakfast pattern were estimated to lose approximately 1.0 year of life, while men lost about 0.8 years.
The sugary-beverage pattern showed substantially stronger negative associations.
Across participants overall, the pattern was linked to a 31% higher risk of death from any cause.
Among men specifically, the increased mortality risk reached 39%.
Researchers estimated that the dietary pattern was associated with as much as 3.0 years of life lost among men and 1.7 years among women.
The association between the sugary-beverage pattern and mortality was not limited to cardiovascular disease, according to the study.
Findings Point to Overall Diet Rather Than Individual Foods
The researchers said the results support looking at entire dietary patterns instead of trying to identify one food as responsible for better health.
Foods most strongly associated with the favorable pattern included onions, garlic, leeks, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peppers, legumes and vegetable oils.
The findings support reducing sugary beverages and placing greater emphasis on plant-forward meals, although the healthier pattern identified in the study was not exclusively plant-based.
That broader dietary pattern overlaps with findings from other areas of nutrition research.
Research from National Taiwan University has found that a vegetable-rich diet can significantly reduce the risk of hypertension and related conditions.
Mediterranean dietary patterns, which similarly emphasize vegetables and olive oil, have been associated with lower risks of diabetes, heart attack and stroke.
Vegetables also contain phenolic compounds, flavonoids and vitamin C that have been linked with antioxidant activity, according to research examining Mauritian vegetables.
A meta-analysis covering 57 studies found that every one-point increase in adherence to a Mediterranean diet was associated with a 5% reduction in cardiovascular disease risk.
The Canadian findings therefore fit within a larger body of research suggesting that diets emphasizing vegetables and other minimally processed plant foods may be associated with better long-term health outcomes.
Observational Findings Do Not Establish Cause and Effect
Researchers cautioned that the analysis was observational.
That means the study can identify associations between dietary patterns and health outcomes but cannot prove that eating a particular combination of foods directly caused participants to live longer or experience fewer cardiovascular events.
Other lifestyle, socioeconomic, behavioral or health factors could have contributed to the differences observed between groups.
The results nevertheless provide additional evidence that long-term eating habits may matter more than any isolated “superfood.”
Earlier work cited by Joel Fuhrman has described populations consuming healthy, vegetable-rich diets with no recorded heart disease, while separate research has linked Mediterranean-style eating patterns with lower mortality among older adults.
Taken together, the findings suggest that diets built predominantly around vegetables, legumes and other plant-forward foods are associated with better long-term health outcomes, while patterns dominated by sugary drinks and refined foods are associated with higher mortality and shorter estimated life expectancy.
The strongest association in the Canadian analysis was seen in the vegetable-rich group, where the difference in estimated longevity reached more than eight years for women and more than six years for men.
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