Eating seven or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day is healthier than the recommended five, and can significantly reduce the risk of death, a University College London study says.
The findings, published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, established that eating more than seven portions of the healthy food groups reduces your risk of death at any point by 42 percent when compared with eating less than one portion.
"We all know that eating fruit and vegetables is healthy, but the size of the effect is staggering," Dr. Oyinlola Oyebode of UCL's Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, lead author of the study, said in a press release.
Oyebode said a "portion" meant about 80g (3oz), meaning "one large fruit or a handful of smaller fruit or veg," BBC News reported.
Researchers studied more than 65,000 individuals and found that the more fruits and vegetables they ate, the less likely they were to die at any age.
Seven a day cut the risk of dying from cancer and heart disease by 25 percent and 31 percent respectively. It is difficult for most people to reach the government's daily recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables, let alone seven, but something is better than nothing, the researchers stressed. Compared with eating less than one portion of fruit and vegetables, the risk of death by any cause is reduced by 14 percent by eating one to three portions, 29 percent for three to five portions and 36 percent for five to seven portions.
But if you're going to eat more of one or the other, opt for more vegetables, the researchers add. Each daily portion of fresh vegetables had the strongest protective effect, reducing overall risk of death by 16 percent. For every portion of salad, risk was reduced by 13 percent, and for every portion of fresh fruit 4 percent.
There is no evidence that fruit juice presented any benefits, and canned and frozen fruit in fact increased risk of death by 17 percent per portion - most likely because they're stored in sugary syrup, researchers say.
The UCL team did account for age, alcohol and tobacco use, physical activity and body mass index, but the bottom line is that "the more fruit and vegetables you eat, the less likely you are to die at any age," they wrote.
