Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Mortality

Results from 2 prospective cohort studies of US men and women and a meta-analysis of 26 cohort studies found an inverse association between fruit and vegetable intake and mortality up to approximately 5 servings/day.The 2 prospective cohort studies included 66719 women (1984–2014) and 42016 men (1986–2014), and the dose-response meta-analysis included results from the 2 cohorts and 24 other prospective cohort studies with 1892885 participants. There were 33898 deaths during up to 30 years of follow-up of the 2 cohort studies. After adjustment for known and suspected confounding variables and risk factors, there were nonlinear inverse associations of fruit and vegetable intake with total mortality and cause-specific mortality attributable to cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and respiratory disease. Intake of ≈5 servings/day of fruit and vegetables, or 2 servings of fruit and 3 servings of vegetables, was associated with the lowest mortality, and above that level, higher intake was not associated with additional risk reduction. In comparison with the reference level (2 servings/day), daily intake of 5 servings of fruit and vegetables was associated with hazard ratios of 0.87, 0.88, 0.90, and 0.65 for total, CVD, cancer and respiratory disease mortality, respectively. The meta-analysis with 145015 deaths yielded similar results (summary risk ratio of mortality for 5 servings/day=0.87). Higher intakes of most subgroups of fruits and vegetables were associated with lower mortality, except for starchy vegetables such as peas and corn. Intakes of fruit juices and potatoes were not associated with total and cause-specific mortality. The findings support current dietary recommendations to increase intake of fruits and vegetables, but not fruit juices and potatoes. Source: https://www.ahajournals.org/