According to new research from The University of Sydney, high levels of physical activity do not counteract the detrimental effects of a poor diet on mortality risk.
The study found participants who had both high levels of physical activity and a high-quality diet had the lowest risk of death, showing that you cannot ‘’outrun” a poor diet.
About the study
The researchers examined the independent and joint effects of diet and physical activity with all-cause, cardiovascular disease and cancer mortality using a large population-based sample (360,600) of British adults from the UK Biobank. The UK Biobank is a large-scale biomedical cohort study containing in-depth biological, behavioural and health information from participants.
High quality diets included at least five servings of fruit and vegetables every day, two servings of fish per week and lower consumption of red meat, particularly processed meat.
The study revealed that for people who had high levels of physical activity and ate a high-quality diet, their mortality risk was reduced by 17% from all causes, 19% from cardiovascular disease and 27% from selected cancers, as compared with those with the worst diet who were physically inactive.
According to researchers, “some people may think they could offset the impacts of a poor diet with high levels of exercise or offset the impacts of low physical activity with a high-quality diet, but the data shows that unfortunately this is not the case.”
Adhering to both a quality diet and sufficient physical activity is important for optimally reducing the risk of death from all causes, cardiovascular disease and cancers.
Source: British Journal of Sports Medicine, July 11, 2022
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