Dietary Patterns and Longevity

scientific literature on diet and health is large and burgeoning. Until now, researchers have focused predominantly on the effects of individual nutrients and sometimes foods, but rarely on dietary patterns. Outcomes are often biomarkers, risk factors, or morbidity. Studies with total mortality as an outcome are uncommon, in large part because the sample size must be extremely large and/or the duration of follow-up long. Nonetheless, such studies are important because mortality as an outcome has unequivocal clinical relevance. In this issue of Circulation, Heidemann and colleagues 1 document the relationship of 2 dietary patterns with total and cause-specific mortality.