Want your best chance for living a long, healthy life? Have a diet that is high in plant protein, say Japanese researchers.

That’s the suggestion following their prospective study of over 70,000 adults, recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

According to their findings, a higher intake of plant protein was associated with lower total mortality,  specifically mortality related to cardiovascular disease. In fact, those people whose diet was proportionally in the highest bracket for plant protein were up to 41% less likely to die from a heart attack or stroke.

And in case one thinks it is the protein that is the key rather than the plant component, think again. The study showed higher total and animal protein intake was not associated with overall mortality or any specific cause of mortality, and that includes high fish intake diets, or eggs and dairy diets.