Older Adults On This Diet Take Less Medicine Later In Life, Study Finds

The research investigated the link between diet and polypharmacy—where a person takes five (or more) prescribed medications—and found a vegan diet reduced the number of pills a person was prescribed by 58%, when compared to a non-vegetarian diet.

The study included 328 participants (all aged 60+), who answered questionnaires and went in for measurements at the Loma Linda University Drayson Center in Loma Linda, CA—which is one of the Blue Zones, as noted by Dan Buettner.

Other factors that impacted the prevalence of polypharmacy included age, body mass index (BMI), and presence of pre-existing diseases, with BMI having a “significant” impact on the number of prescriptions people had, as well.