Behind the numbers in a new Swedish study are tens of thousands of ordinary people who, since 1997, have kept telling researchers what they eat and how they live. That long record is what let a team at Aarhus University ask a practical question: do the updated Nordic dietary guidelines actually help people live longer?
Their answer was yes. Middle-aged Swedish men and women who closely followed the guidelines had a 23% lower risk of death than those who did not. The gap held even after the researchers accounted for education, income and physical activity.
Who was studied
The team analyzed data on more than 76,000 Swedish adults enrolled in two long-running studies, the Swedish Mammography Cohort and the Cohort of Swedish Men. The work was led by Associate Professor Christina Dahm with PhD student Anne Bak Mørch, and appeared in The Journal of Nutrition.
The guidelines, introduced in 2023, tell people to eat less meat and added sugar, and more whole grains, legumes, fish and low-fat dairy. They were written to serve personal health and the climate at once. This is the first study to look at the overall health effects of the updated recommendations.
“The study also reveals lower mortality from cancer and cardiovascular disease among those who are best at adhering to the guidelines,” Dahm said.
Why it matters beyond Sweden
Dahm said the results should hold across the Nordic and Baltic countries, whose national guidelines rest on the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations. Food production and consumption account for roughly 30% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, which is part of why the guidelines weigh climate impact alongside nutrition. In her words, a sustainable Nordic diet “benefits public health and the climate” and could serve as a model for other regional diets worldwide.
For families wondering what this means at the dinner table, the study is observational. It shows that people who eat this way tend to live longer, not that the food alone is the reason. The researchers also said more work is needed on how the pattern affects obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer, and they plan to pursue those questions next. Consult your doctor for medical advice.
