New York: Researchers have found that women who eat a Mediterranean diet can keep age-related diseases at bay and live longer than others.
The Mediterranean diet is rich in fruits, vegetables, fish, legumes and heart-healthy fats and greater adherence to such a diet is associated with longer telomeres, the biomarkers of ageing, the findings showed.
“To our knowledge this is the largest population-based study specifically addressing the association between Mediterranean diet adherence and telomere length in healthy, middle-aged women,” said Immaculata De Vivo, an associate professor at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in the US.
Nurses who adhered to the diet had fewer signs of ageing in their cells. The researchers from Boston followed the health of nearly 5,000 nurses over more than a decade.
The Mediterranean diet has been repeatedly linked to health gains, such as cutting the risk of heart disease.
Although it’s not clear exactly what makes it so good, its key components — an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables as well as poultry and fish, rather than lots of red meat, butter and animal fats — all have well documented beneficial effects on the body.
Foods rich in vitamins appear to provide a buffer against stress and damage of tissues and cells. And it appears from this latest study that a Mediterranean diet helps protect our DNA.
As we age and our cells divide, our telomeres get shorter — their structural integrity weakens, which can tell cells to stop dividing and die.
Experts believe telomere length offers a window on cellular ageing. Shorter telomeres have been linked with a broad range of age-related diseases, including heart disease, and a variety of cancers. In the study, nurses who largely stuck to eating a Mediterranean diet had longer, healthier telomeres.
“Our results further support the benefits of adherence to this diet to promote health and longevity,” De Vivo added. The study was published online in The BMJ [formerly the British Medical Journal].
Independent experts said the findings were interesting but by no means conclusive. Dr David Llewellyn, senior research fellow in clinical epidemiology at the University of Exeter, said: “All observational studies have the potential to produce misleading estimates, and we should not assume that the association with telomere length is necessarily causal.
“That said, this large well-conducted study is consistent with the hypothesis that dietary interventions may lead to substantial improvements in health.”
The British Heart Foundation said: “These results reinforce our advice that eating a balanced and healthy diet can reduce your risk of developing heart disease.”
Dr Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said the results added weight to the view that the diet could help prevent age-related illnesses such as cardiovascular disease.
He said: “Longer telomeres may partially explain the link between diet and risk of cardiovascular disease. These results reinforce our advice that eating a balanced and healthy diet can reduce your risk of developing heart disease.”
