Hanley-Cook GT, Huybrechts I, Biessy C, et al. - This study’s results lend support to the potential of food (species) biodiversity as a guiding principle of sustainable dietary recommendations and food-based dietary guidelines.

• In 451,390 adults enrolled in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study, free of cancer, diabetes, heart attack, or stroke at baseline, the links between dietary species richness (DSR) and subsequent total and cause-specific mortality were assessed.

• Observations revealed inverse associations of higher DSR with total mortality rate as well as with cause-specific deaths due to cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, and digestive disease, independent of other established components of diet quality.

• In participants in the highest and lowest fifth of DSR, absolute death rates were estimated to be 65.4 and 69.3 cases/10,000 person-years, respectively.

• Derivation of self-reported total energy intake from a narrow range of species was revealed.