Abstract:
Healthy eating is linked with a range of favorable health outcomes. We have previously published the Food4HealthyLife model that estimated the impact of dietary changes on life expectancy but has not yet modeled disease-specific morbidities. The objective of this work was to summarize background evidence for associations between food choices, morbidity and mortality using a systematic umbrella review framework. We conducted four systematic umbrella reviews, focusing on all-cause mortality, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases. We systematically searched Medline, Embase, Web of Science, and Epistemonikos for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. In total, 4220 articles were screened for the mortality umbrella, 5074 for the diabetes umbrella, 2925 for the obesity umbrella, and 2448 for the umbrella on cardiovascular diseases. In total, 41 articles were included in our analysis on mortality, 67 on diabetes type 2, 13 on obesity, and 127 on cardiovascular diseases.
Our results showed that a high intake of whole grains was associated with reduced mortality, reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and obesity, as well as cardiovascular diseases. Inversely, red and processed meats and sugar-sweetened beverages were associated with increased mortality, increased risk of type 2 diabetes and obesity, as well as cardiovascular diseases. Nuts, vegetables, legumes, generally had beneficial associations to several of the outcomes.
In conclusion, our comprehensive approach for the most up-to-date evidence supported our former analyses supporting health benefits of high intakes of whole grains, nuts, fruits, vegetables nuts and legumes, and less of red and processed meats as well as less sugar-sweetened beverages.
Biography:
Lars T. Fadnes is a professor at Department of Global Public Health and Primary at the University of Bergen and research group leader at Haukeland university hospital. He is a medical doctor and is a specialist in general practice as well as having a diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene. Fadnes has worked with research on dietary patterns and associations with chronic diseases and has had substantial international collaboration with researchers from the United Kingdom, Uganda, South Africa, Italy, Australia, the United States, with external funding from the Research Council of Norway, the Western Norway Regional Health Authority and DAM. His research spans across several themes, mostly focusing on nutrition and associations to chronic diseases, substance use and migration. Fadnes has more than a hundred scientific publications published in international peer-reviewed journals, as well as being covered in many hundred newspaper stories. He has also been central in development of guidelines both nationally and internationally relating to both nutrition and treatment of people with substance use. He is part of the Norwegian national advisory panel on nutrition (Nasjonalt råd for ernæring) and the Norwegian scientific committee for food and environment (VKM). He has received awards for research and innovation including the Meltzer award for excellence in the dissemination of research (2022), Young researcher award for health research in Western Norway 2021, Falch junior award for medical research 2021, and prize for research and innovation 2020 (Kunnskapskommunene), and has several articles on the Altmetric top rank list. He is the leader of HEMIX research group and Bergen Addiction Research, is co-founder of the Norwegian competence centre for substitution therapy (NORCATS), has supervised/is supervising >15 candidates (including 7 who has completed and 6 as main supervisor).
