Research Review: Would you trade 35 minutes of your life for a hot dog?

We all know that certain foods are bad for us and others good, but a new study starkly reinforces this by allocating precise numbers to a huge range of foods.

Review by Assoc Prof Mike Climstein, PhD & Dr Joe Walsh, PhD

KEY POINTS

• Researchers conducted a study in which they identified foods that either add duration to your life, or take it away
• The researchers used selected dietary risk factors and nutritional epidemiology and assessed adults aged 25 years and older in the USA for 15 dietary risk factors
• Some of the results were quite surprising, with some everyday food items deemed to reduce life by over an hour and others adding similar duration
• Processed foods and red meat were generally categorised as unhealthy while plant-based foods, cereals and seafood were deemed to be life-adding.

Title: Small targeted dietary changes can yield substantial gains for human health

Authors: Dr. Stylianou and colleagues (Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Michigan USA)

Source: Nature FOOD, available free online here

Introduction: There is a good reason why I have never studied nutrition, dietetics, whatever you want to call it: I am not an embodiment of ‘clean eating’. Sure, I surf, swim or go to the gym every day, but my morning snack at 7:30 am is either a couple doughnuts (cinnamon is my favourite), lamingtons, hot cross buns (when available) or apple scrolls… and of course, a glass of Coke at midday. I think you get the idea – there is clearly room to improve my diet. However, I adhere to the life mantra of work hard, exercise hard and eat what I like. This diet extraordinaire no doubt explains my higher than desired adipose level of 16.7%. On the bright side, however, my metabolic age is 20 years younger than my chronological age and my lipids are excellent, so my physical activity must be offsetting these indulgences!

In all honesty, except for the morning snacks, Coke and evening chocolate (did I omit to mention that above?), I believe I otherwise eat a very clean diet, as delusional as that may sound. Now, my colleagues are well aware of my ‘food choices’ yet are polite enough not to scold me for them. Joe has adopted a unique approach, by indirectly informing me how I am either adding or subtracting years to or from my life by what I eat, courtesy of a newly published article that is the subject of this issue’s Research Review.  

Dr Stylianou and her colleagues conducted a study in which they identified foods that either promote health (which they report in terms of life years added), or that reduce years from one’s life. They developed a Health Nutritional Index (HENI) to quantify the health effects in minutes of healthy life gained or lost of almost 6,000 foods. The authors state that the overconsumption of foods detrimental to health, and an underconsumption of foods beneficial to health, account for more than 10 million disability-adjusted life years (ie., DALY, which is the number of years lost due to premature mortality).

Methods: The researchers used selected dietary risk factors and nutritional epidemiology and assessed adults aged 25 years and older in the USA for 15 dietary risk factors.

Results: The results were quite interesting; for example, a corned beef sandwich with tomato sauce and onion was found to reduce life by 71 minutes, whilst a hot dog sandwich reduced life by 35 minutes. The authors attribute this to the damaging effects of processed meat that outweigh the benefits associated with tomatoes and onions. On the bright side, a serving of sardines with a tomato sauce base added 82 minutes to an individual’s life, while a peanut butter and jelly sandwich increased life by 33 minutes.

The article then describes hot dogs, breakfast sandwiches, burgers and red meat as being almost exclusively health negative, and nuts, peanut butter and jelly (jam to non-Americans) sandwiches, legumes, seafood, fruits, snack bars, ready-to-eat cereals and non-starchy vegetables as health positive.

Pros: This is a very interesting approach by the authors to quantify foods by ‘plus or minus’ minutes of healthy life. I can’t imagine their results at this point in time being a requirement on all food labels, though perhaps this is the start of a new trend in food labelling? The authors also did an analysis on the environmental impact of the foods they analysed (e.g. water use in production, impact on global warming).

Cons: The reader is advised to be careful to interpret the findings with some good common sense. For example, if a food is identified as being healthy, then eating it exclusively at the expense of a balanced diet would be detrimental to health. Additionally, while this study is a very promising way to look at the foods we eat, we should remember that there could be errors or factors that are not adjusted for as it is a fairly novel analysis. In fact, a few of the rankings seem a bit surprising, so a degree of caution should be exercised. If a food that is being scored as particularly healthy, for example, does not seem to be healthy intuitively (some of the high scoring processed foods for instance), caution would be advised before significantly increasing the intake levels in the diet.

There are many papers that support the findings in Stylianou and colleagues’ research. For example Budhathoki et al (2019) investigated animal versus plant protein on mortality in 70,000 Japanese adults.  They found that animal protein has no clear association with total or cause-specific mortality. However, higher plant protein intake (by only 3%) was associated with a lower total and cardiovascular disease-related mortality. Furthermore, they reported that replacement of red meat protein (or processed meat protein) with plant protein was associated with lower total, cancer-related, and cardiovascular disease-related mortality. This lends credibility to Stylianou and colleagues’ findings.

The results clearly illustrate the message that eating unhealthy foods can reduce your lifespan, while eating healthy foods can potentially increase it. This is the first time I have ever seen an article which attempts to quantify minutes of life added or lost based upon specific foods consumed. I am reluctant at this point to never eat a hot dog or burger again as there are plenty of long lived Americans, the country with the highest annual meat consumption per capita (followed closely by Australia) – though of course the USA does have a very high obesity rate (more than one in three people are obese).

Although the accuracy of the allocated minutes may be debatable and impossible to accurately quantify, having these numbers so starkly asserted does beg the question, would you risk trading 35 minutes of your life for a hot dog? Food for thought when you next encounter a Sausage Sizzle at Bunnings!

REFERENCES

• Stylianou, K., Fulgoni, V., & Jolliet, O. (2021). Small targeted dietary changes can yield substantial gains for human and environmental health. Nature FOOD. 2:616-627.
• Budhathoki, A., Sawada, N., & Iwasaki, M. (2019). Association of Animal and Plant Protein Intake With All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality in a Japanese Cohort.  JAMA Internal Medicine. 179(11): 1509-1518.

Assoc Prof Mike Climstein, PhD FASMF FACSM FAAESS AEP

Dr Climstein is one of Australia’s leading Accredited Exercise Physiologists. He is a faculty member in Clinical Exercise Physiology, Sport & Exercise Science at Southern Cross University (Gold Coast). [email protected]

Dr Joe Walsh, PhD

Joe has worked in a number of large international research teams with study findings presented around the world. In addition to working in the university sector, he is a director of Sport Science Institute. sportscienceinstitute.com

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