November 16, 2023 – An evaluation of studies makes a widely known statement much more convincing: Eating fewer animal products is nice to your health.
The evaluation used information from 37 studies and was published within the journal BMC Medicine.
“Our results suggest that changing diet from high consumption of animal foods, particularly red and processed meat, to plant-based foods (e.g. nuts, legumes and whole grains) is associated with a lower risk of everything.” cause mortality, heart problems and sort 2 diabetes,” the researchers concluded. CVD is a heart problems and T2D is type 2 diabetes.
The New York Times said, “The study is particularly useful because it details which dietary changes are most strongly associated with better health,” quoting Qi Sun, an associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology on the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Study. Sun was not involved on this research.
The study found that replacing a single serving of processed meat per day with whole grains, nuts or beans was related to a 23% to 36% lower risk of cardiovascular problems akin to stroke and heart attack, The New York Times found.
Participants within the United States, Europe and Asia were surveyed about their food plan and followed for roughly 20 years. The researchers also took into consideration other health aspects akin to physical activity and smoking.
“These types of studies cannot determine whether plant-based foods directly prevent cardiovascular disease or type 2 diabetes – only that there is an association between eating more such foods and a lower risk of developing these diseases.” said Sabrina Schlesinger, an epidemiologist and nutritionist on the German Diabetes Center in Düsseldorf and one among the lead authors of the study,” wrote the New York Times.
“But the results were consistent across studies, she said, and are supported by other research pointing in the same direction.”
The Alpro Foundation, a part of a Belgian company that makes herbal products, partially funded the research. Schlesinger said the corporate was not involved in conducting the study.