The Study
Dietary components and risk of total, cancer and cardiovascular disease mortality in the Linxian Nutrition Intervention Trials cohort in China
This study watched what people ate for 26 years and noticed that those who ate more veggies, fruits, and beans tended to live longer and get sick less often. But it didn’t make people change their diets—it just watched—so we can’t say for sure that the food itself caused the longer life.
Analysis score
Maximum 72 for a cohort study.
Where the score came from
Scientists followed 2,445 people in rural China for 26 years to see what they ate and who got sick or died.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 568 / 100
Quality score
Groups of people are followed over time to see who develops an outcome. Strong for identifying risk factors and associations, but cannot prove causation as firmly as RCTs.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1These changes in diet could meaningfully lower the chance of dying from common killers like heart disease and stroke in this population.
- 2People who ate more non-whole grains had 14% less risk of dying from stomach cancer; eating one more serving of veggies daily cut heart disease deaths by 11–23%; eating beans 4x/week cut heart disease deaths by 37%; eating nuts 3x/month cut heart disease deaths by 11%; eating dark green veggies lowered stroke deaths.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Scientific Reports
Year
2016
Authors
Jian-bing Wang, Jin-Hu Fan, S. Dawsey, R. Sinha, N. Freedman, P. Taylor, Y. Qiao, C. Abnet
Related Content
Claims (6)
People who eat nuts have lower rates of death from heart disease and gastric cancer compared to those who do not.
People in rural China aged 40–69 who eat more dark green vegetables have a lower rate of death from stroke over 26 years compared to those who eat less.
Adults in rural China aged 40–69 who eat one additional serving of vegetables per day have a lower rate of death from heart disease over 26 years, with the strongest link seen for yellow and orange vegetables.
Adults in rural China who eat beans four times a week have a 37% lower rate of death from heart disease compared to those who eat less, based on a 26-year study of 2,445 people.
Adults in rural China who ate nuts three times a month had an 11% lower rate of death from heart disease over 26 years compared to those who ate fewer nuts.
In rural Chinese adults aged 40–69, higher daily consumption of non-whole grains is linked to a 14% reduction in deaths from gastric cancer over 26 years.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.