Inside Out | Poor diets, both among the overindulged and malnourished, kill more people every year than smoking, Lancet study finds
- A study last week by The Lancet found that poor diets - both by the overindulged and the malnourished - cause one in five deaths worldwide every year, more than smoking
The British medical journal The Lancet last week resumed its war on “Big Food” with a report that estimates poor diets causing one in five deaths worldwide, significantly more than tobacco and smoking.
Health authorities should broaden their battles against obesity, heart disease, cancer and diabetes - currently aimed at specific harmful ingredients like sugar, starch and sodium - and encourage communities to eat fruit, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, seeds and nuts, the study said. In a massive study of people over 25 years old in 195 countries, it finds that almost everywhere, we eat too few of these.
“This study confirms what many have thought for several years – that poor diet is responsible for more deaths than any other risk factor in the world,” said co-author Christopher Murray at the University of Washington. “Dietary policies focusing on promoting the intake of components of diet for which current intake is less than optimal might have a greater effect than policies only targeting sugar and fat.”
“Shifting diet from unhealthy animal-based foods to healthy plant-based foods might (also) be associated with lower emission of greenhouse gases and thus might be environmentally more sustainable,” the report added.
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I can feel the world’s carnivores squirming. Of the 11 million estimated annual deaths from diet-related causes, 3 million can be blamed on sodium, but a further 3 million die because they don’t eat enough whole grains, and 2 million because their diets lack fruit. For comparison, about 7 million people die every year for tobacco-related reasons.
