But a new foray（突袭，侵略） into the arena¹ of sound eating says the famous five-a-day recommendation made by the UN's World Health Organisation² in 2003 should be fine.

 

Researchers in China and the United States trawled through 16 published investigations³ into diet and health involving more than 830,000 participants, who were followed for periods ranging from four and a half years to 26 years.

 

Every additional daily serving of fruit and vegetables reduced the average risk of premature⁴ death from all causes by five percent, the scientists found.

 

Over the period of the studies, 56,000 of the participants died, researchers said.

 

In the case of death from a heart attack or a stroke, each additional serving curbed⁵ risk by four percent.

 

But there was no evidence of an additional fall in risk beyond five portions, according to the review, published online Tuesday by the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

 

"We found a threshold of around five servings a day of fruit and vegetables, after which the risk of death did not reduce further," said the investigators⁶, led by Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts.

 

High consumption of fruit and veg did not translate into a significant reduction in the risk of death from cancer, the study also found.

 

In addition to advising patients about the virtues⁷ of healthy eating, doctors should also push home the message about risks from obesity⁸, inactivity, smoking and excessive drinking, said the paper.

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