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Spanish plant-based brand Heura used the event of Spain’s Medical Residency Entrance Exam on January 25 to launch a campaign highlighting the health benefits of a plant-based diet.
Heura appeared outside the Faculty of Medicine in Barcelona with a van bearing the slogan “A plant-based diet can increase your life expectancy by 10 years.” It’s aim was to raise awareness among future doctors about the effectiveness of plant-based diets for preventing serious chronic diseases. The Heura team handed out sandwiches and packets of its plant-based ham to medical students who had taken their exam.
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“We want to invite the doctors of the future to lead the shift towards a more sustainable and conscious diet, benefiting both people and the planet with alternatives designed to be as delicious as they are healthy,” Marc Coloma, CEO and co-founder of Heura Foods, said in a statement.
Plant-based gains
The campaign pointed out that plant-based diets can reduce disease risk compared to the increased risks posed by eating certain animal products.
Eating a diet rich in plants and low in animal products is associated with a significantly lower risk of developing or dying from cardiovascular disease. One study showed a 31 percent reduction in risk of death from heart disease. Heura highlighted how eating products like beef burgers and ham makes it more likely people will develop heart disease of colorectal cancer.
According to research from the University of Oxford, each additional 50 g a day of processed red meat increase cardiovascular disease risk by 18 percent. For each 50 g of unprocessed red meat, the risk goes up by 9 percent.
Heura also highlighted a study showing that swapping just 3 percent of animal protein for plant protein was associated with nearly 40 percent higher odds of healthy aging. The benefits to the health system were also promoted in the campaign. Heura said that for every €1 invested in healthy diets, more than €12 are saved in treatments for preventable diseases.
The campaign, coinciding with the last week of Veganuary, is Heura’s most recent bit of public advocacy for the health benefits of plant-based eating. In October 2024, the brand opened a pop-up “pHAMacy” in Paris to highlight the harms of processed meat and the solution to the problem: plant-based meat.
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