Is there a relationship between the amount of food you eat and your life span? Does it mean that the more you eat, the healthier you will be and the longer you will live?

This is based on answering a question from a netizen about whether there is a relationship between food intake and longevity.

Whether the amount of food eaten is related to life expectancy is a very vague concept. How should we understand this amount of food eaten? Should we eat only bread, rice, steamed buns or dumplings? There seems to be no such topic in scientific research, but there are still many studies on the effects of dietary structure and food intake on health and life expectancy, and there are many conclusions.

Since this involves the most important things in the world like eating, drinking, defecating and urinating, I want to explain it as clearly as possible to be responsible to everyone. Therefore, it is a bit long and a bit wordy. Please be patient and read it through.

The so-called conclusion is the analysis and proportion obtained through research or big data survey.

Eating, drinking, defecating and urinating are the most important things in life, no matter how noble or humble a person is, they cannot be avoided. In comparison, drinking and urinating seem to be more important than eating and defecating. Eating and defecating can be tolerated occasionally, but no one can stand drinking and urinating for a whole day.

The so-called food intake is mainly related to "eating". Eating is the main way and source for humans to replenish energy and maintain life. Eating more or less is of course related to health and life expectancy. This is basic common sense. For example, in the past when food was scarce and famine was rampant, eating less cost many lives. The so-called "starving people everywhere" was the result of eating less or having nothing to eat; some people died of bloating after eating too much. During the Great Famine, there were many examples of people who died of overeating after being hungry for a long time and suddenly got food. This was the result of eating too much.

From these simple historical experiences, we can see that the so-called food intake is closely related to life expectancy, but what are the specific modern studies? Let's take a look.

The impact of eating too much or too little on health

First of all, I think eating too much or too little is not good for the body. Don't overeat, keep a balanced diet, and eat until you are 70% to 80% full. According to the Chinese eating habits, there are three meals a day. I think the rhyme that was circulated in the early years is quite reasonable, that is, the morning should be good and nutritious; the lunch should be full, you can eat more, but only 70% to 80% full, don't eat until your belly is full; the evening should be light, that is, eat less.

A US study believes that the most important thing to pay attention to during the morning, afternoon and evening is dinner, which determines a person's weight and life span. The survey shows that in the general dinner structure, only one-quarter of the food is needed to maintain life, while three-quarters is redundant. Excess calories accumulate in the body and lead to obesity. Therefore, eating more at dinner is the main cause of obesity, and obesity leads to a series of diseases and is an important reason for affecting life expectancy.

Some people do not control their diet at all, and often say that they can eat three bowls of rice at a meal, and that being able to eat means they are healthy and live longer. Such people are usually prone to overeating, which is not good for the body. Because the so-called "rice" is mainly carbohydrates such as grains and flour, which will be broken down into glucose after entering the human body, providing nutrition and energy for the human body.

However, if you consume too much carbohydrates, there will be excess glucose stored in the cells as glycogen, which will be converted into fat and make you obese. At this time, more insulin is needed to digest the blood sugar in the blood, which will cause the pancreas to be damaged due to long-term burden, and eventually inhibit the ability to produce insulin, and people will develop type 2 diabetes; the body releases a large amount of insulin, which causes blood sugar to drop rapidly, leading to hunger, forming a vicious cycle of always wanting to eat but not being full; the increase in blood sugar caused by excessive intake of carbohydrates can also cause damage to nerve cells, blood vessels, heart and eye cells.

Some studies have shown that if a person is over 45 years old and their weight increases by 10% over the normal value, their life expectancy will be reduced by 29 days for every pound (about 0.45kg) overweight. What is the normal value? There is an internationally accepted body mass index, which is an internationally unified obesity classification standard recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), referred to as the BMI (not IBM), which is the weight divided by the square of the height, that is, IBM = weight (kg) / height (m)^2.

The calculated results show that the BMI index is defined as: the standard value for adults, which means it is best to control it between 18.5-23.9;

Therefore, having a big appetite is not a good thing. Knowing when to stop eating is conducive to health and longevity.

Is it okay to skip the staple food? No, I still advocate eating three meals a day normally, just eat less. I see some people skipping meals at all in order to lose weight, not even eating lunch or dinner, but this will cause harm to the body, which is really not worth the loss.

There are two consequences for people who do not eat regular meals. One is that due to too little normal intake, they will feel hungry after a while. They can't help but eat more snacks, or rummage through drawers and cabinets to get other things to eat. Not only can they not lose weight, but they also gain weight. The other is that due to eating little or even not eating for a long time, they develop anorexia, and eventually malnutrition seriously damages the body, or even death.

It can be seen that correctly treating and normally consuming three meals a day plays a very important role in health and longevity.

The most important thing now is to overcome diseases of affluence

Now that Chinese people are wealthy and have escaped poverty, the food they eat is becoming more and more diverse, especially China's food culture. There are so many food specialties from all over the country. Every time I watch "A Bite of China" on TV, I feel salivating and can't wait to have a feast.

These Chinese food cultures, although the recipes of various series are nutritious, delicious, and colorful, the structure is not necessarily reasonable. In the past, when people were poor, they did not care about these things. As long as they had food, it was fine. If they had delicious food, it was even better. Who would care about the structure of the diet? But now the times are different. Now that we can eat well and be full, we have to pay attention to healthy diet. Many families have begun to match their diets, mainly focusing on the protein, cellulose, vitamins, trace elements, grain carbohydrates, etc. contained in the ingredients, which must meet the needs of the human body. Only in this way can we eat healthily.

There are greater differences in the dietary structures of countries around the world. For example, the Western dietary structure is mainly based on animal meat, supplemented by plant-based grains; the Mediterranean dietary structure is mainly based on olive oil, fish, and animal meat, with beef and chicken as the main animal meat, and fruits and potatoes as the main carbohydrates; the Eastern dietary structure is mainly based on plant-based grains such as cereals, and meat is mainly pork, beef, lamb, and chicken.

From these dietary structures, the Western diet has the characteristics of high calories, high protein, and high fat; the Mediterranean diet is the best, so the countries in that region have the lowest incidence and mortality rates of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and cancer, and the average life expectancy is 17% higher than that in the West. The above picture is an illustration of an article published in the April 2019 issue of The Lancet on the relationship between diet and life expectancy over the past 27 years (1990-2017).

This chart reflects the mortality rate caused by dietary problems in 190 countries (regions) in the world. In the chart, there are 7 color blocks marked with color blocks from the lowest to the highest. China is in the light red block, ranking at the sixth level, with a mortality rate of 313 to 397 per 100,000 people due to dietary problems; the United States is in the light green area, ranking at the third level, with a mortality rate of 142 to 189 per 100,000 people due to dietary problems; and Japan is in the highest level of dark blue blocks, with a mortality rate of less than 105 per 100,000 people due to dietary problems.

There is also a study from the George Institute for Global Health, which analyzed 400,000 foods in 12 countries and regions around the world and came up with a ranking of the countries with the healthiest food and beverages in the world. In this ranking, the United Kingdom won the honor of being the top, followed by the United States and Australia, whose star indexes were 2.83, 2.82, and 2.81 respectively, which were very close; the lowest star index scores were India, China, and Chile, which were 2.27, 2.43, and 2.44 respectively. (The above figure shows the top factors leading to mortality due to unreasonable diet in various countries, and the figure below shows the top five risk factors in China's diet compared with other countries)

What does this show? It is about whether the dietary structure is reasonable or not. The unreasonable factors of China's dietary structure are still very large, which leads to a high mortality rate. What enlightenment do these research data give us? I think that while satisfying the appetite of the Chinese people, it is necessary to reflect on the dietary structure.

Our food culture is rich and colorful. While satisfying people's appetite, how much benefit does it bring to physical health and longevity? It is common to see some people on the Internet criticize Western fast food with strong arguments, such as KFC and McDonald's have become synonymous with junk food. Unfortunately, although their reputation is very bad, their business is still so prosperous, and you have to queue up every time you go there. Why is this?

Western fast food certainly has the problem of high calories, but is our criticism really hitting the nail on the head? While criticizing others, have we examined ourselves? As far as I know, although Western fast food has a lot of calories, the recipes have always been very well researched and particular. There are strict ratios of protein, vitamins, fiber, and carbohydrates, and how to adapt the taste to the differences between the East and the West is also constantly being studied. For example, a hamburger contains chicken or beef, vegetables, salad dressing, and bread. How can such a nutritional combination become garbage?

From high-end restaurants and hotels to food stalls, we have a wide variety of fried, deep-fried, cooked and grilled food, with all five flavors of bitter, spicy, sour, sweet and salty. But has anyone really thought about nutritional balance? There are also deep-fried and grilled food, and all kinds of dishes are generally fried, and some dishes are covered with a thick layer of grease. Are these all healthy and harmless? Nowadays, there are more and more obese people and more and more cardiovascular diseases. Isn't it all caused by foreign fast food?

I really don't mean to whitewash foreign fast food. I also like Chinese cuisine very much. The biggest problem when I go to a foreign country is that I can't get used to the food there. But we can reflect on what we have forgotten and missed while criticizing others for having problems and advocating "A Bite of China"?

In the past, Chinese people were very poor, and they didn’t have enough to eat or wear warm clothes. So at that time, as long as they could eat enough, they were fine. There was no condition to talk about nutritional matching or dietary balance. Eating enough food was the main source of nutrition and energy for the human body, and there was no particular requirement. But now that China is getting richer, we can’t eat like that anymore. If we eat too much, we will get rich diseases, so we have to be more particular.

Being rich is not a bad thing, but if there are too many diseases of affluence, it is a very bad thing. Overcoming diseases of affluence seems to be the most important thing for our people to be healthy and live longer, and the way to overcome them is to have a balanced diet with a reasonable nutritional structure.

What is a reasonable dietary structure?

I will not copy the research results of WHO and some domestic and foreign countries here, but summarize them. A reasonable diet means balanced nutrition, reasonable intake, neither too much nor too little. Some people may say that it is difficult to eat neither too much nor too little. In fact, the requirements are not so high. As long as you basically achieve it, you just need to pay a little attention to it.

Generally speaking, there are several categories of dietary structure, and people just need to have a roughly balanced intake every day. These categories are staple food, protein, various nutrients, fiber, various trace elements, oils, etc. Now I will not talk about how foreigners eat, but only talk about how Chinese people achieve a balanced diet.

Our total daily nutritional intake for adults can be roughly controlled as follows: 300-500 grams of staple foods such as cereals, based on the weight of the grains before processing, and this part of food accounts for about 32% of the total diet; poultry, fish, meat and eggs, one egg per day, 70-100 grams of meat, 50 grams of fish and shrimp, and this part of food accounts for about 13% of the total diet; 50 grams of beans, 250-300 grams of milk (fresh milk), and this part accounts for 9.5% of the total diet; 500 grams of vegetables and fruits (including root vegetables and green leafy vegetables), and about 200 grams of fruit; about 30 grams of fat per person, or about 0.5-1 gram per kilogram of body weight.

This requirement is not high, right? As long as we pay attention to it, everyone can do it, right? Even if it is difficult to eat fish and meat every day, you can eat them every now and then, as long as you keep the overall balance. There is a big misunderstanding among the people, especially some elderly people, who think that they are old, their digestion is not good, and they have three highs, so they try to eat less meat and eggs, but they don’t reduce the amount of food they eat, but instead eat more and more, thinking that eating more is the only way to be healthy.

In fact, this idea is very harmful. Many elderly people have more and more problems and their health is getting worse because of unbalanced nutrition. Eating one or two eggs, two or three taels of meat every day, plus some dairy products and vegetables and fruits, this kind of diet is healthy and long-lived. The function of milk is mainly to supplement calcium, especially for the elderly who lose more calcium. The calcium content in milk is very high and is easily absorbed. Therefore, it is very good for the elderly to insist on drinking milk.

Some people do not eat chicken and beef, thinking that they are "fat" and not good for the elderly with some health problems. This is also very wrong. The protein content of chicken and beef is higher and better, and the nutritional value is much better than pork. The fat content of pork is higher than that of chicken and beef, and the amino acid absorption rate of pork is also worse than that of chicken and beef. Therefore, eating chicken and beef or fish eggs is better for the body than eating pork.

The reason for this thought and feeling is that Chinese people, especially Han people, have long used pork as their main meat food. They are used to it, and their taste and body adaptability are greater. Beef and chicken are not eaten as much as pork, and the less often they are eaten, the less adaptability they have. In fact, once you get used to it, it feels the same, and there is no such thing as "fat" or "not". The so-called "fat" in folk culture is caused by the body's inability to adapt to certain foods or proteins, and it becomes the same once you get used to it.

Several foods that affect health and lifespan

Even if the dietary nutrition structure is reasonable and balanced, will it be healthy? Not necessarily, because humans have many bad habits that make people feel comfortable and cozy, but they are not necessarily good for health and life expectancy. As early as 2012, the World Health Organization proposed a list of carcinogens, which listed many foods and drinks that Chinese people like.

The World Health Organization classifies carcinogens into categories 1 to 4. Category 1 carcinogens are substances that there is definite evidence to cause cancer; Category 2 carcinogens are substances that there is evidence to cause cancer in animals, but whether they are carcinogenic to humans requires further research; Category 3 carcinogens may cause cancer, but it has not yet been confirmed; Category 4 carcinogens are substances that there is no clear evidence to be non-carcinogenic.

In this list, 116 items are classified as Class 1 carcinogens, many of which are closely related to our lives. Now let’s focus on the problems of tobacco and alcohol, which have a greater impact on people’s lives.

Studies have shown that there are 69 carcinogens in tobacco, and the smoke from burning tobacco contains more than 7,000 chemical components, including hundreds of harmful substances that can cause serious harm to human health. When the carcinogens are inhaled into the human body, they can cause gene mutations and lead to the occurrence of malignant tumors.

The specific mechanism of harm is very complicated, so I won’t introduce it one by one here. Anyway, smoking has no benefits at all. The more you smoke, the more harm it will cause. The less you smoke, the more harm it will cause. In addition, secondhand smoke also poisons family members and friends. Smoking is the biggest cause of lung cancer. The treatment effects of lung cancer in smokers and non-smokers are also different. Lung cancer in smokers is more difficult to treat than in non-smokers, and the mortality rate is higher.

The carcinogenic parts of alcohol are mainly ethanol and acetaldehyde. The main component of any alcohol, including beer, red wine, white wine or some alcoholic beverages, is ethanol. When ethanol is metabolized in the body, acetaldehyde is produced. This substance has been shown to be closely related to diseases such as lung cancer and liver cancer. Moreover, alcohol, as a solvent, can also promote the absorption of more carcinogens by the digestive tract and various organs, thereby increasing the risk of cancer; alcohol can also stimulate and damage the esophageal and gastric mucosa, leading to esophageal and gastric diseases and cancer; alcohol can also reduce the body's absorption of nutrients such as vitamins and minerals, and reduce the body's immunity.

There are several misunderstandings about smoking and drinking. For example, in real life, there are many people who smoke and drink and live a long life, while some people who do not smoke or drink die young. Some people conclude that smoking and drinking are not only harmless, but may also prolong life, or at least will not shorten life. In fact, this is a logical error of generalizing from a single case, because the conclusions drawn from scientific research are universal phenomena, not individual cases.

The length of a person's life span is related to many factors, not just smoking or drinking. But if we compare individuals with each other, or analyze the big data of tens of millions of people, people who do not smoke or drink are healthier and live longer than those who smoke or drink. This is meaningful scientific analysis data.

There is also a misconception that drinking less alcohol or drinking red wine is good for the body, especially for the cardiovascular system. In fact, there is no rigorous scientific experiment to support this statement. Even if some studies believe that red wine or drinking a small amount of alcohol is good for the body, these studies are biased and tend to say the best, but they are selectively blind to the harm of alcohol and draw a one-sided conclusion.

Of course, since the harm of tobacco and alcohol is chronic and cannot be seen immediately, people tend to ignore it. Or even if they know that it is really harmful to health and life span, they still do it for the sake of the fun of life. There are many people who hold this view.

Of course, I believe more in the conclusion of the WHO, because it represents the mainstream view of world science. But I also like to drink a little wine knowingly, and even occasionally indulge in willfulness. I guess it is because of the above mentality. Your body belongs to you, and of course to your family. Adults have their own cognition and responsibilities. There are many choices in life. You know that it is objectively harmful, but it is still your own choice.

There are many other carcinogens that are closely related to our lives, such as Chinese salted fish (pickled products), preserved eggs (aluminum-containing products), aflatoxin (moldy food), aristolochic acid (contained in many Chinese herbal medicines), Clonorchis sinensis (raw food, especially raw freshwater fish), etc. Intake of food containing these harmful substances will cause harm to your health.

Therefore, while paying attention to a reasonable and balanced diet in life, avoiding these bad habits, or eating less of these foods that are harmful to the body, is an important guarantee for achieving health and longevity.

in conclusion:

Eating more or less does affect your health and lifespan. "Big appetite" is not good for your body. Being able to eat more does not necessarily mean being healthy. A balanced diet is better. Whether you are a child or an elderly person, a healthy person or a patient, you must maintain a balanced diet to give your body better resistance and immunity.

Of course, a nutritious and reasonable diet is only one aspect of good health and longevity. There are many other factors that affect human health and longevity, such as genetic problems, environmental problems, exercise problems, emotional problems, trying to avoid bad habits, not eating carcinogens and other unhealthy foods, etc. Each of these factors is closely related to human health and longevity.

These factors are a very long topic and I won’t discuss them in detail today.

In short, don't overeat, and don't be too picky about your diet which may lead to malnutrition. I hope that friends who have had these problems in the past can overcome them from now on, so that they can be healthier and live longer.

If you have any opinions on this, please feel free to discuss. If you like my article, please support and like it. I sincerely thank you for your reading and love.

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