Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI)
The Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) is a dietary quality scoring system developed at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to predict chronic disease risk. Unlike the USDA Healthy Eating Index (HEI), the AHEI is explicitly evidence-based — components are selected for their associations with cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mortality outcomes in large prospective cohort studies.
Scoring
- Range: 0–110 (11 components × 0–10 each)
- Higher score = better diet quality
- Components include: vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes, whole grains, long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (fish), PUFAs, alcohol (moderate = positive), red/processed meat (lower = positive), trans fats (lower = positive), sodium (lower = positive), sugary beverages (lower = positive)
Key Finding
In Tessier et al. (2025), the AHEI showed the strongest association with healthy-aging among eight dietary patterns examined over 30 years in 105,015 participants (OR 1.86, 95% CI 1.71–2.01, highest vs. lowest quintile). Using an age-75 threshold, the OR strengthened to 2.24.