New Research: These Diets Kill More Than Smoking or High Blood Pressure

A study of global food intake patterns showed that poor diets contribute the most to global deaths rates, stressing the vital and dire need to improve our dietary intake across all nations. In the past couple of decades, dietary policymakers have focused on the contribution of fat, sugar and sodium intakes to mortality rates. However, a new systematic analysis of dietary patterns across 195 countries revealed that a sub-optimal diet missing in other food groups have more impact on mortality than previously thought.

The study, which evaluated dietary patterns from 1990-2017, concluded that the highest contributors to global death rates are diets low in whole grains, nuts and seeds, vegetables, fruits, omega-3-fatty acids, and diets high in sodium. Astonishingly, these dietary factors individually contributed to more than 2% of global deaths. Interestingly, these identified dietary risk factors were unlike previously known mortality risk factors as they impacted death rates regardless of age, gender or environment.

As expected, the contribution of each identified dietary risk factors varied across countries and continents. In the USA, Germany, India, Brazil, Egypt, Russia and Nigeria, low intake of whole grains contributed the most to deaths. On the other hand, a high intake of sodium contributed the most to deaths in Japan, Thailand, and China. A low intake of nuts and seeds was the leading dietary risk factor to deaths in Mexico while Bangladesh and southern sub-Saharan Africa had a low intake of fruits as the leading contributor. Overall, the highest rates of diet-related deaths were observed in Oceania countries, while the lowest rates were observed in high-income Asia Pacific countries.
When the authors looked closely at the 20 most populous countries globally, they observed that Egypt had the highest diet-related deaths while Japan had the lowest. China had the highest diet-related death rates due to cardiovascular disease and cancer, while Mexico had the highest diet-related deaths due to type-2-diabetes. Japan seems to be doing something right as they had the lowest diet-related deaths due to cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. This may explain why Japan consistently ranks highly on the life expectancy index. Finally, the authors observed that type-2-diabetes accounts for about 40% of diet-related deaths in the USA.

In view of the enormity of these findings, global dietary policy may need to be refocused more on the inclusiveness of the identified food groups into our food systems. While policies could rightly be targeted towards the consumers, it is pertinent that such policies are targeted and enforced in channels involving food production and distribution.

Study Reference:   Afshin, Ashkan, et al. "Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017." The Lancet (2019). Health & Household