By Mark Smith
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April 27, 2026
Health New Update: Millions of Lives Saved by Healthy Eating 4.27.26 Hey everyone: Here is some research that reveals that healthy eating could save millions of lives every year and also improve economics and planetary health. Wow!! They analyzed 3 different types of diets, and all of them are a significant improvement compared to the Standard American Diet, and this study looked at worldwide diets. The different diet scenarios were implemented by adjusting the region-specific diets described in the reference scenario, which maintained the regional character of food consumption. The HGD (Healthy Global Diet) diet included (per day) a minimum of five portions of fruits and vegetables, fewer than 50 g of sugar, a maximum of 43 g of red meat (the size of a small deck of cards), and an energy content of 2,200–2,300 kcal, depending on the age and sex composition of the population. The VGT (Vegetarian)and VGN (Vegan) diets differed from the HGD in including six (VGT) or seven (VGN) portions of fruits and vegetables and one portion of pulses, with no red meat, poultry, or fish, and in the VGN diet no dairy or eggs. What did they find? Moving to diets with fewer animal-sourced foods would have major health benefits ( Fig. 1A ). Compared with the reference scenario, we project that adoption of global dietary guidelines (HGD) would result in 5.1 million avoided deaths per year [95% confidence interval (CI), 4.8–5.5 million] and 79 million years of life saved (CI, 75–83 million) ( Fig. 1A and SI Appendix, Fig. S2 ). The equivalent figures for the vegetarian (VGT) diet are 7.3 million avoided deaths (CI, 7.0–7.6 million) and 114 million life years saved (CI, 111–118 million) and for the vegan (VGN) diet 8.1 million avoided deaths (CI, 7.8–8.5 million) and 129 million life years saved (CI, 125–133 million). Differentiated by risk factor, more than half of avoided deaths (51–57% across the three scenarios) were due to decreased red meat consumption, 24–35% to increased fruit and vegetable consumption, and 19–30% to a lower prevalence of being overweight and obese associated with limiting excessive energy intake. The reduced mortality in the VGT and VGN scenarios compared with the HGD scenario was due to lower red meat consumption (1.7 million additional avoided deaths in each) and higher fruit and vegetable consumption (VGT, 0.8 million; VGN, 1.8 million additional avoided deaths). Across the three nonreference scenarios, about 45–47% of all avoided deaths were from reduced coronary heart disease (CHD), 26% from stroke, 16–18% from cancer, and 10–12% from type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4839446/ Healthy eating saves millions Bottom Line: By eating better, millions of lives could be saved. Please read the above paragraph again slowly as it is a lot to take in. Now ask yourself: is my diet optimal? If I can reduce my risk of chronic disease, extend both my health and life span, what am I waiting for?