Consumers should forget about taking medication to help them stay healthy longer and change their diet instead, suggest scientists writing in this week’s British Medical Journal. Regularly eating fish, wine, dark chocolate, fruits and vegetables, garlic and almonds could extend the life expectancy of men by 6.6 years and women by 4.8 years, says the team from Erasmus University in Rotterdam. The regime has been dubbed a ‘polymeal’ in reference to a report in the same journal last year that described the potential benefits of a ‘polypill’. The pill, combining aspirin, folic acid and cholesterol-lowering and blood pressure drugs, could reduce risk of heart disease - the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in Western populations – by more than 80 per cent, according to the advocates. But the Rotterdam researchers say that the polymeal would achieve roughly the same effect at lower costs and with less risk of side effects.
