The way we eat significantly affects our health, thus can be a major factor in how long or short our lifespan will be.
Health experts have looked into the food choices that most people consume every day and found out the highly processed foods are one of the major contributors to many of the health issues resulting in increased morbidity rate.
The research found in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings revealed that an increased intake of ultra-processed or highly processed food was associated with a higher risk of mortality.
This is one of many poor eating habits that have a significant impact on our health and longevity. Here are several more poor eating habits you should be aware of.
1. Eating too much processed red meat
The Mayo Clinic also did several research on the consumption of red meat by tracking over 1.5 million people between ages 5.5 to 28 years. The results reveal that eating processed red meat on a regular basis is linked to an increased risk of heart diseases, cancers, and early death.
This includes bacon, hot dogs, sausage, deli meat, ham, canned meat, as well as fermented, cured, and salted meat.
These meats are high in saturated fat, sodium, and nitrates, which are thought to be implicated in their associated risks.
2. Consuming too much fried food
According to WebMD, the University of Iowa's College of Public Health Assistant Professor, Dr. Wei Bao, explained that fried food consumption is associated with a higher risk of all-cause death and death from cardiovascular disease.
Dr. Bao also revealed that they had conducted long-running research from 1993 to 1998 to understand the effects of fried food consumption on heart diseases and cancer.
As a result of the study, among over 30,000 deaths, 9,320 deaths were due to heart diseases, and 8,358 deaths were due to cancer.
Data showed that people who ate one or more servings of fried food a day had an 8% higher risk of dying compared with those who didn't. Additionally, one or more fried chicken servings a day was linked to a 13% increased risk of death from various causes, and a 12% increased risk of heart-related death.
3. Sugar and more sugar
Another poor eating habit that most of us are guilty of is consuming too much sugar. Science Daily says that excessive sugar consumption increases the risk of developing metabolic disorders like obesity and diabetes and can shorten a person's life expectancy by several years.
4. Excessive alcohol intake
It is not unknown to many that regular alcohol consumption can be harmful to your health. Consequently, it can also shave off years from your lifespan. A specific study revealed that having 10 to 15 alcoholic drinks weekly could shorten a person's life by between one and two years.
People who consume excessive alcohol had an increased risk of stroke, heart failure, fatal hypertensive diseases, and fatal aortic aneurysm.
Authors of some studies suggest that the varying risk of different forms of cardiovascular disease could be due to the impact of excessive alcohol on blood pressure and HDL levels or "good" cholesterol.
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