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Adopting a healthy plant-based diet could help people with cardiometabolic conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease to live longer, a new study has found.
Cardiometabolic disorders are on the rise globally. Combined, they’re now the world’s leading cause of death, and unhealthy diets with low intake of fruit and vegetables are a major contributing factor. The study, presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session, found that mortality risk from these conditions can be lowered by eating a lot of healthy plant-based food.
The researchers analyzed data from nearly 78,000 people in the UK, US, and China with cardiometabolic disorders. Researchers assigned them scores on healthful and unhealthful plant-based diet indexes based on dietary questionnaires or interviews. Those who ate a lot of vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and legumes, and consumed few sweetened or refined products and animal-based foods scored higher on the healthful index. Participants who are more refined grains, potatoes, sugary drinks and animal-based foods scored higher on the unhealthful index.
Read more: Major 20 Year Review Finds Plant-Based Diets Reduce Disease Risk
A higher score on the healthful index was associated with a 17 to 24 percent lower risk of death from any cause, as well as from cardiovascular disease or cancer. A higher score on the unhealthful index raised the risk of death by 28 to 36 percent. “More intake of healthy plant-based foods, less intake of unhealthy plant-based foods and less intake of animal-based foods are all important,” said lead author Zhangling Chen from Central South University, Changsha, China.
More evidence for the power of plants
The link between lower risk of death and a healthy plant-based diet persisted once the researchers adjusted for factors such as age, race, smoking, and physical activity.
One limitation of the study was that participants’ dietary data was self-reported at the baseline, and not assessed again. This means that changes in diets were not reflected in the results. But many other studies back up the conclusion that a whole foods plant-based diet has positive health outcomes.
According to one recent study, soy milk is better for cardiometabolic health than cow’s milk by reducing blood pressure, cholesterol, and inflammation. Another found that getting more of your protein from plants than animals could reduce the risk of heart disease.
