When determining the adequacy of a diet, it’s best to measure outcomes that are tangible. Since there is little benefit in trading one disease that will kill you for another, overall mortality rate is probably the most important outcome to measure.

Of course, dying isn’t the only concern - quality of life may be as important if not more so. But it has been difficult enough to correlate eating patterns with disease and mortality, much less being able to throw quality of life into the mix. It’s generally assumed that a diet that increases life span will increase the number of years of disease-free living.