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When you’re old, screw it—you might as well hit up the 1 – 3pm Pizza Hut buffet to load up on Garlic Pizza bread every day of the week. Your nearly eight decades of life have earned you the right to eat what you want. But seriously, science now says that once you hit 75, the benefits of eating healthily go out the window.
For five years, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers followed the eating habits of 449 people aged 75 and up, and categorised their diets into three classes. There are the sweets and dairy, which are characterised by lots of baked goods, coffee and tea, dairy-based desserts, and very little poultry. The there’s the health conscious class, which includes good grains, fish, nuts, and not much in the way of fried/processed food or soft drinks. And the third is the Western pattern, a diet defined by alcohol, fried food, sodas, eggs, breads, fats, and not much fruit, veg or protein. Researchers also cross-referenced the old timers’ medical records to check for a correlation between a bad diet and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, or even death.
And guess what? Researchers found no relation, no matter which class of diet the person followed. Although there was a higher risk of hypertension for the sweets and dairy segment, and suggested that ascribing to a healthy diet is probably going to give you fewer problems in the long run. But overall, it seems once you’re at that advanced age, if you’re going to die you’re just going to die. The results of the study are published in the Journal of Nutrition Health and Aging, as well as the next email your grandmother writes you in all caps. Respecting your elders now means letting them eat whatever the hell they want. [Penn State via Futurity]
Image credit: Shutterstock/Aaron Amat
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What about the knee joints though? Surely the heavier you are, the more pressure you put on them, and the more likely that you will wear them out?
Eat more and give your aging body more work.
If that old timer who passed away the other week at 110 started eating like a pig at 75, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have lived for another 35 years.
Fuck these scientists.
Hmm… which would I rather do – eat and drink all the things I wanted and have a great time or live another 30 years sitting in a retirement home waiting for matron to wipe my arse.
Tough one…
Having seen a couple of videos of the guy a few years ago, he wasn’t sat having his arse wiped. And what you consider having a great time may not be everyones cup of tea.
I agree, having volunteered at a hospice in the past, I’d choose a quick death over having to suffer the indignity of a slow, painful demise.
nice Luddite view, is it science in general or just these scientists you have a problem with
Awww, you think ‘scientists’ are all the same, that’s rather sweet.
If anything it’s headlines like this I have a problem with.
It’s not about the scientists, it’s about the study, if the study is good quality then it wont matter who did the test.
the study isn’t actually about how MUCH you eat, it’s about WHAT you eat.
So eating like a pig wouldn’t be covered
And what was the average expected lifetime in the area they did the study? If I remember my geography Alabama has one of the worst in the US so getting to 75 itself in an area like that is an achievement and if you only live another couple of years it probably wouldn’t matter.
On the other hand who the hell wants to live longer as an old person, I have no problem with the idea of living longer its having to be old that is the bad bit.
In short, if you’ve reached 75, you can pretty much carry on living the way you have been. However, if you have a diet high in sugar and dairy, you may not be doing yourself a favor. Otherwise, it ‘may’ have little or no effect on your health.
The golden sentence is this; “However, people who live on prudent diets all their lives are likely to have better health outcomes.”
Goes some way to invalidate the ‘eat whatever you want’ lifestyle choice, no matter what age you are.
Anyway, it’s your choice. Go ahead, eat whatever you want, fatty fat fat.
This is utter rubbish! a) Without exception, those I know who consume a junk diet – no matter their age – are ill considerably more often – young or old. b) With the exception of cancer that appears to be more based on genetics and environment, all those in my family who have passed away fairly prematurely have consumed a poor diet and not done enough exercise in the latter half of their lives. c) I have personally switched an ageing relative to a Mediterranean diet and she is considerably more healthy than she was a few years ago. d) The majority of those who live a long life, whilst often admitting to smoking, claim low stress, a loving family and a low calorie diet to be the secret.
Me thinks this report is one of those that will benefit a specific industry, such as the one that makes cakes, sugar and other pleasing to consume but useless for the body ‘food’.
I’m seeing too many cynics and not enough skeptics here, so i’ll try to balance it a bit.
While i can’t comment on the validity of the study (because i havent read it.). Current average life expectancy 80.4 years so if the study is correct then no group, not the healthy eating group nor the fatty eating group drastically changed their life expectancy in a meaningful way.
There definitely could be reasons for this, statistically age and health benefits don’t follow a straight line, rather, as age goes up the benefits of healthy eating fall, whereas eating well 0-30 may extend your life by 10-15 years, eating well 75-80 may only give you another few months, which would not make a difference to this study.