Lessen the Risk of COPD by Eating Healthier
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iStock/Thinkstock(PARIS) — There are a lot of obvious short-term benefits to eating healthy that people are aware of such as keeping off excess weight, boosting energy and strengthening the immune system against colds and flu.
However, people should also look further into the future when deciding to change their eating habits, particularly since researchers at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research in France say that a healthy diet could help ward off COPD or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the third leading killer in the U.S.
Study lead author Raphaelle Varraso and his colleagues looked at the health and eating habits of 120,000 Americans from 1984 through 2000 to determine who was more likely to contract COPD, which includes chronic lung diseases such as emphysema and bronchitis.
Essentially, those whose diets consisted of complex carbohydrates such as green vegetables and whole grains, and polyunsaturated fats and nuts were a third less likely to develop COPD than people who consumed mainly red meat, sweetened drinks and alcohol.
What’s more, the benefits of a healthy diet were instrumental in lowering the risk of COPD whether people were smokers or not, although prevention efforts should focus on smoking cessation as well.
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