New study identifies foods that help you live longer

Your five servings of fruit and vegetables are no longer enough, new research by the prestigious Imperial College London shows.

A study by the college found that eating 10 portions of fruit and veg a day could help us live longer, the BBC reported. The study also identified specific food items in that could that could help ward off cancer and heart disease.

The study pulled data from 95 separate pieces of research that looked at the eating habits of two million people in total.

According to the BBC report, a lower risk of cancer was linked to eating green veges such as spinach and yellow veges such as capsicum, while a lower risk of heart disease was linked to eating lots of apples, pears, citrus fruits, salads and green leafy vegetables.

Cruciferous vegetables – a fancy name for plants of the cabbage family –  such as cauliflower are linked to both lower cancer risk and lower heart disease and stroke risk.

One portion is equivalent to 80 grams.

The findings were published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

New Scientist points out, however, that the research the study is based on wasn’t subject to randomised controlled trials – the highest kind of medical evidence – but was based on observations on what people ate and when they died.

Do you get your five a day? Could you manage 10 servings of fruit and veges or have you given up following new health research?