Study: Eating seven vegetables per day will decrease risk of death by 47 percent

A new study finds eating vegetables has a significant impact on your life.

A new study shows that consuming seven portions of fruit and vegetables each day can help people live longer. Researchers have found that eating more fruit and vegetables greatly reduces the risk of death of people at any age from heart disease, cancer, and stroke.

Researchers from the University of London concluded that a daily diet including at least seven portions of fruit and vegetables was linked to a 42 percent lower risk of death from all causes. The same portion amounts of fruits and vegetables are also linked to a 25 percent lower risk of death from cancer and a 31 percent reduced risk of premature death from a stroke or heart disease.

Lead study author Dr. Oyinlola Oyebode, from University College of London’s Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, said, “We all know that eating fruit and vegetables is healthy, but the size of the effect is staggering.”

Dr. Oyebode and her team studied lifestyle data from yearly national health surveys for England from 2001 to 2008. More than 65,000 randomly selected people ages 35 and older were included in the study.

Survey respondents reported eating an average of just under four portions of fruit and vegetables the day before. During the course of the study, 4,399 participants died.

The study found that vegetables seem to offer more protective advantages than fruit. Consuming two to three portions of vegetables per day was linked with a 19 percent lower risk of death. The same intake of fruit only led to a 10 percent lower risk of death.

The researchers found that benefits of fruit came from both fresh and dried fruit. However, frozen or canned fruit did not offer the same benefits, and actually increased the risk of death by 17 percent, a number researchers believed was linked to the added sugars in processed fruit.

The study results, which were published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, were so persuasive that they led other countries to rethink their recommended daily intake, such as the UK’s current guidelines of five pieces of fruit and vegetables per day.