--- title: Changing Your Diet Can Make You Live Longer description: Switching to a healthier diet can make a difference in how long you live, according to the latest research. canonical: https://time.com/4855506/healthy-diet-live-longer/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-07-12T21:02:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:31:46.464Z article:section: Health og:title: Eating a Little Bit Healthier Helps You Live Longer og:description: Adding healthy foods to your diet may make a difference in how long you live og:url: https://time.com/4855506/healthy-diet-live-longer/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0fc35ccee26a90ab/6988c14d86f68ef95d6e41d3/time-health-stock-healthy-food.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: time-health-stock og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Eating a Little Bit Healthier Helps You Live Longer twitter:description: Adding healthy foods to your diet may make a difference in how long you live twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0fc35ccee26a90ab/6988c14d86f68ef95d6e41d3/time-health-stock-healthy-food.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Eating a Little Bit Healthier Helps You Live Longer  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jul 12, 2017 9:02 PM UTC  Freshly harvested vegetable and food in a vintage basket Freshly harvested vegetable and food in a vintage basketGetty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jul 12, 2017 9:02 PM UTC No surprise here: people who follow healthy diets [tend to lead longer, healthier lives](http://time.com/3706705/what-diet-helps-people-live-the-longest/). But most of the studies backing this assertion compared people who ate well to people who didn’t. Does changing your own diet over many years make much of a difference? In a new study published in the _New England Journal of Medicine_, researchers found that it did. People who added in some wholesome foods over time—even if they didn’t necessarily commit to making over their entire way of eating—improved their chances of living longer. Researchers looked at data from the same group of people over 12 years to see if those who changed their diet for better or for worse—either by eating more healthy foods or more unhealthy foods—lived longer or died earlier than those who didn’t change what they ate. The study involved more than 73,700 men and women enrolled in two long-term health studies. People were asked to record their typical diet at the start of the study, then to fill out food questionnaires every four years for 12 years after that. The researchers then scored the diets by ranking the healthfulness of food components including vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts, red meat, fish and dairy, as well as things like sugar-sweetened beverages. Using the reports, researchers were able to gauge how much of a person’s eating habits changed over time. **MORE:** [This Diet Has Been Linked to a Longer Life](http://time.com/3614678/mediterranean-diet-longevity/) People who said they ate more healthy foods over time had a lower risk of dying during the study period. The more healthy foods people added to their diet, the lower their risk. It worked the other way, too. Those who ate more unhealthy foods over time saw their risk of dying during the study go up. The good news is that adding in any amount of healthy foods may help lower the risk of early death. Improving diet by just 20% was linked to a 8-17% lower risk of premature death. (Eating 20% more of unhealthy foods, in contrast, contributed to a 6-12% increased risk in death.) Even cleaning up one meal a day seems to help. Swapping out one serving of red or processed meat a day with healthier nuts or legumes was linked to any where from an 8% to 17% drop in the risk of premature death. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4855506/healthy-diet-live-longer/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4855506/healthy-diet-live-longer/"},"headline":"Eating a Little Bit Healthier Helps You Live Longer","datePublished":"2017-07-12T21:02:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T16:31:46.464Z","description":"Switching to a healthier diet can make a difference in how long you live, according to the latest research","url":"https://time.com/4855506/healthy-diet-live-longer/","keywords":["Diet & Nutrition","diet","Nutrition","Aging","Longevity","healthy diet"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0fc35ccee26a90ab/6988c14d86f68ef95d6e41d3/time-health-stock-healthy-food.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0fc35ccee26a90ab/6988c14d86f68ef95d6e41d3/time-health-stock-healthy-food.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"time-health-stock","caption":"Fresh Vegetable And Food in Basket","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/dietnutrition/","name":"Diet & Nutrition"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4855506/healthy-diet-live-longer/","name":"Eating a Little Bit Healthier Helps You Live Longer"}}]}] ```