Date: 8 Sep 2022

Key points in the announcement

• In a Japanese cohort, the association between fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of all-cause and specific-cause mortality was evaluated.
• The risk of all-cause mortality was found to be lower in groups with high intake of fruit and in groups with high intake of vegetables than in groups with low intake of fruit and vegetables. However, the risk was not found to continue decreasing as the level of intake increased.

Overview

A research group that included Yokohama City University (President: Michiko Aihara; location: Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama) and National Cancer Center Japan (President: Hitoshi Nakagama; location: Chuo-ku, Tokyo) evaluated the association between fruit and vegetable intake and mortality risk, based on the results of a survey that, through 2018, tracked about 95,000 people who had responded to a food frequency questionnaire conducted five years after the start of the study and who exhibited no cancer, cardiovascular disease, or liver disease. The study found that, compared with groups with low intake of fruit and vegetables, the risk of mortality from all causes was approximately 8–9% lower and the risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease was approximately 9% lower in groups with high intake of fruit, and that the risk of mortality from all causes was approximately 7–8% lower in groups with high intake of vegetables.

The results of the study were published as “Inverse Association between Fruit and Vegetable Intake and All-Cause Mortality: Japan Public Health Center-Based Prospective Study” (principal investigator : Norie Sawada, National Cancer Center Institute for Cancer Control) in the international academic journal The Journal of Nutrition (website pre-release on June 28, 2022).