Want to eat your way to better health and longer life? An excellent place to begin may be by focusing on eating two fruit and three vegetable servings a day. At least according to a new study of around two million adults worldwide published in the American Heart Association scientific journal, Circulation. For their research, scientists analyzed data from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study in the US, which included more than 100,000 adults over the course of up to 30 years, as well as 26 more studies from around the globe.
“While groups like the American Heart Association recommend four to five servings each of fruits and vegetables daily, consumers likely get inconsistent messages about what defines optimal daily intake of fruits and vegetables such as the recommended amount, and which foods to include and avoid,” said lead study author Dong D. Wang, M.D., Sc.D., an epidemiologist, nutritionist, and a member of the medical faculty at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, in an American Heart Association press release. So there’s a magic number of fruits and veggies? Indeed, through their number-crunching, scientists found that five daily servings of fruits and vegetables in which two are fruits and three are vegetables, “is likely the optimal amount for a longer life.” Interestingly, eating more than five servings of fruits and veggies was not associated with additional health benefits.
Two Servings of Fruit and Three of Vegetables Are Recommended Per Day
The experts believe their findings can be applied to broader populations since the findings of the U.S. data were similar to those found in study participants around the world. Wang also stressed that the study underscored the importance of fitting in your “five-a-day” of fruit and veggies. “This amount offers the most benefit in terms of prevention of major chronic disease and is a relatively achievable intake for the general public,” Wang said in the same media statement. “We also found that not all fruits and vegetables offer the same degree of benefit, even though current dietary recommendations generally treat all types of fruits and vegetables, including starchy vegetables, fruit juices, and potatoes, the same.”
Dr. Lior Lewensztain, M.D., founder & CEO of That’s it. Nutrition., who isn’t associated with the research, was encouraged by these findings and hopeful that the research makes waves with the general public: “The recent data released by American Heart Association is great news for the plant-based set, but it is equally important that those not following a plant-based diet pay attention to it as well,” he said. “While high consumption of fruits and vegetables have long been linked to improved health and longevity, this study gives us tangible guidelines on how much to consume — and a concrete idea on what we can expect if we do.”
With many Americans failing to come close to this five-a-day benchmark, there’s still much work to be done: “I’ve long believed in the idea of food as medicine, and that a diet high in real, whole foods is one of the most impactful ways an individual can maintain overall health and stave off chronic diseases. With the alarming majority of Americans — currently nine in 10 — not meeting these guidelines, I hope that this research will be a catalyst for more people to start consuming the fruits and vegetables their bodies need,” Lewensztain continued.
Morgyn Clair, M.S., R.D.N, for Sprint Kitchen, echoing Lewensztain’s sentiment, added that while she thinks this recommendation is “excellent” focusing on simply getting five fruit and vegetable servings a day is a stellar starting point, without getting caught up in the nitty-gritty of your fruits- to-vegetables ratio. “I think it's more important for people to work toward reaching that goal of five servings per day, and then concern themselves with the makeup of [these servings],” she said. “For example, if a client of mine is having three fruits per day and two veggies, when they normally have one-to-two servings of both per day, I consider this a success. In nutrition, sometimes it is about improving on a smaller scale and then honing in on more specific diet aspects later.”
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The Surprising Number of Fruit Servings You Should Eat in a Day - The Beet
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