Scientists have warned that eating two types of popular foods could accelerate the ageing process, even in young people. A new study of more than 800 people has found a link between diet quality and biological ageing.
More specifically the team, from universities in Finland, discovered that poorer diets, including high amounts of fast food, processed meat, and soda but low amounts of fruit and vegetables, could result in accelerated biological ageing.
The opposite was found for those who ate lots of fruits and vegetables and limited their processed red meat intake.
For the purposes of the study, which was published in Clinical Nutrition journal, biological age was gauged using what is known as epigenetic clocks – algorithms that can assess health and lifespan, even at a young age, before clinical manifestations of diseases.
Previous research has already linked poor diet to an increased risk of disease and health conditions.
But by focusing on study participants aged between 21 and 25, the researchers found that your diet could start to affect your health in later life while young.
The study authors wrote: “It is important for disease prevention to investigate the link between diet and health from an early age before clinical signs of age-related diseases appear.”
They summarised their findings: “In general, diets emphasizing higher consumption of fruits and vegetables and lower intakes of meat, fast food, and sugar-sweetened beverages were associated with slower biological ageing.”
But they added: “Diets low in fruits and vegetables and high in meat, fast food, and sugar-sweetened beverages were linked to faster biological ageing.”
One of the study’s authors, Suvi Ravi – from University of Jyväskylä, told Medical News Today that the results were unsurprising. She commented: “Actually, I was not surprised.
“The findings are consistent with studies conducted in middle-aged and older populations, as well as with the few studies that have been carried out in younger individuals.
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“There was no reason to expect that our cohort would differ from these earlier observations despite their young age.”
Experimenting further, the team added more variables to the study, such as body mass index (BMI), total energy intake, level of physical activity, alcohol intake, and smoking. Following this, the association between dietary patterns and biological ageing was less clear, suggesting that factors such as regular exercise could somewhat compensate for a poorer diet.
