Fewer than one in ten people achieve “healthy ageing” by reaching their seventies without at least one major disease or impairment, a study has found, but scientists have identified a simple diet to help middle-aged people stave off decline in later life.
Researchers who studied more than 100,000 people and followed them for 30 years found that only 9.3 per cent of older people could be classed as properly “healthy”.
However, they also found that this select band shared similar dietary habits, providing further evidence of the impact that diet can have on the long-term risk of accumulating diseases and other physical, mental and neurodegenerative conditions.
Those in the healthy 9.3 per cent were those with diets rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, unsaturated fats,