Food link to health and death

Good diet, better health. Bad diet, worse life, earlier death.

The evidence of how our food affects our health has never been stronger.

Last month, a study involving 2,500 researchers across 130 countries concluded that:

• Poor diet was associated with 18.8% of all deaths in 2016 – primarily too little wholegrains, fruit, nuts, seeds and fish oil and too much salt.

• High body mass index was the 4th largest contributor to loss of health, after high blood pressure, smoking and high blood sugar.

• 3 of the top 4 factors therefore involve our diet.

Fortunately, there was good news too.

2016 was the first year that less than 5 million children died under the age of 5. In 1990 the number was 11 million.