It would be most useful to study populations that have healthy diet and lifestyle whatever the age group. By doing that a huge variable that can't be quantified or controlled for, poor diet and lifestyle choices, is eliminated. "Can't be controlled for" is not even science.
Really.
Otherwise it's the "looking for cure for lung cancer so smokers can continue smoking" syndrome...how helpful is that approach really? Certain behaviors are the cause of health, which is now clear as a bell, simple, and true. Why continue looking for "cures" in populations predisposed to ill health? We know they don't work very well anyway, if at all. Why waste money on this kind of research?
Because it's the most profitable.
Approaching modern medicine intelligently requires the use of rationality filters.
1) how amenable is disease X to best diet/lifestyle choices? If good to excellent go there first, it may be all that's needed.
This is a bit tricky to discern as most docs are not versed or predisposed (even if they do know) to give this information to patients (variety of reasons for that unfortunate state of affairs). My sympathies and best wishes to any who are embarking on this sort of study for the first time. You may not be aware that diet is the most powerful factor in health.
2) if disease X is not so amenable then blend healthy diet/lifestyle with carefully selected medical. This "combo" has the potential to amplify overall effect tremendously.
I know there is a huge ongoing cultural debate on the dietary aspect, basically Paleo vs whole food plant based (I do not use the word vegan in this case since it connotes a moral choice, but not necessarily a health choice).
I am in the T. Colin Campbell camp, who found that animal protein itself caused cancer in lab animals (except in very small quantities).
The popular idea his research conclusion has been disproven is the wishful thinking of the "I'd rather fight than switch" camp. (Remember those cigarette commercials on TV arou the time it was becoming more obvious smoking causes cancer?)
Campbell's book "Whole" is worth the read just for the sections on the various backlash to his magnum opus "The China Study".
If you're not familiar with Campbell's research he was replicating an obscure study from an Indian research team. Campbell himself grew up on a dairy farm and firmly believed animal protein was the building block for good health, the more the better. He was out to disprove the study, but couldn't, and then had the courage to follow the research not his biases or the biases of his colleagues. And now thousands of studies show the link between animal consumption to cancer and dozens of other diseases.
There were thousands of studies going back decades showing smoking caused cancer before the public woke up to reality (and a few dozen showing the opposite). An awakened public is powerful, and at that point the lobbies were finally defeated and the surgeon generals warning added to cigarette packaging and advertising banned.
The cigarette industry did not disappear, it's still making money hand over fist, and people who still smoke will find rationals that help them to believe it's "not that bad". Well, maybe. We all rationalize, and most of us do not realize when we are doing it. (80% of drivers self rate as better than average.)
Consumption of animal products isn't going away either, but the public will gradually awaken to the truth: in the high quantities we consume them in they become dangerous substances.
It is true in the context of an otherwise healthy lifestyle probability for negative consequences for singular unhealthy choices are decreased. That is true for any unhealthy choice however and does not mean an unhealthy choice is inconsequential, only that it's less likely to be.
When we're sick and in need of getting well, every choice has the potential to be consequential.
This is also true if we are healthy and shooting for better.
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