Switching to a healthy diet rich in fruit and vegetables, whole grains and low in unhealthy fat and refined sugars for as little as three months or 12 weeks can boost your lifespan and protect against killer diseases.

For the first time a new study has shown the beneficial effects of healthy eating on the ageing process within the body. They believe that along with taking a daily vitamin and mineral and fish oil supplements, regular exercise and stress management people can reduce their cancer risk and the delay the ageing process. And the research team have called for urgent further research to discover just how powerful a factor diet and lifestyle is on overall health.

 

It is estimated that one in four women will develop cancer and rates are thought to increase with age. Although cancer risk can be linked to genes and the environment, researchers are now convinced that diet and exercise also play a crucial part. According to Cancer research, UK, approximately one in four of the 15,000 cancer deaths each year are connected to poor diet and resulting weight gain, but until now the link has been unclear. Previous studies that compared what people ate with their risk of illness were notoriously unreliable because most people can’t recall exactly or reliably what they eat. The latest research, however, from the Preventative Medicine Research Institute in California, published in The Lancet Oncology, looked at a new part of the human system that was not based on dietary surveys. It showed that cancer sufferers who switched to healthy eating saw a significant increase in an enzyme, called telomerase, which protects cells from damage.

 

The research supports existing studies that show there is a clear link between cell ageing and factors such as diet and stress.  In my opinion the findings of this latest study are of enormous significance and will help take science even closer to discovering exactly why and how diet is so important for our health and wellbeing.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 at 4:20 am and is filed under Healthy Ageing, Healthy Living, In the News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.