According to a recent study, middle-aged people who get about half of their daily calories from food such as pasta and rice live for a number of years.

The results of the research, published in the medical journal The Lancet, pdoubt the way of diets that avoid carbohydrates for the benefit of proteins and animal fats, a trend in Europe and North America.

Proponents of these stone-age diets claim that the rapid change – 10,000 years ago with the beginnings of agriculture – to grains, dairy products and legumes did not leave sufficient time for the human body to adapt to this high foods in carbohydrates.

According to the study, a low carbohydrate regimen is one in which they provide less than 40% of the total energy, although many diets of this type reduce that ratio to 20% or less.

At the other pool, a percentage equal to or greater than 70% of the energy from carbohydrates – pasta, rice, sugary drinks – can also extend the life, but much less, according to scientists.

"Diets with low carbohydrates that replace them with proteins or fats are becoming increasingly popular as a healthy or slimming strategy", says the lead author, Sara Seidelmann, a researcher at the Brigham and Boston's women's hospital-. Our data suggest, however, that a diet based on animal and low-carbohydrate products can be accompanied by a shorter life expectancy and should not be encouraged.e "

Seidelmann and his colleagues analyzed the medical history of approximately 15,500 people aged between 45 and 64 when they started a health survey – between 1987 and 1989 – at four different points in the United States. The participants completed detailed questionnaires about their eating habits.

More than 6,000 of them had died more than 25 years ago. Men and women who took between 50% and 55% of their calories from carbohydrates lived on average four years longer than those who followed a low-carbohydrate dietand a year more than those who had high hydration regimens.