Obtaining protein from plant sources such as beans and nuts instead of animal proteins such as red meat and dairy products is associated with fewer deaths associated with dementia and heart disease, according to a new study.
The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA), has studied more than 100,000 postmenopausal women for nearly 20 years.
The women in the study who ate more protein from plant sources had a lower risk of deaths related to heart disease and dementia and a lower risk of all-cause deaths, or deaths due to all causes, compared to women who ate more ate. red meat, dairy and eggs.
According to Jennifer Ashton, chief medical correspondent for ABC News and a board-certified OB-GYN, the topic of two working theories in medical and nutrition science literature is why a plant diet can affect health factors such as dementia and heart disease.
“One of them has to do with inflammatory metabolites, so these are by-products of animal proteins that can then affect the heart and brain and our blood vessels,” said Ashton, who also has a master’s degree in human nutrition. ‘Another [theory] has to do with the gut microbiome, the good bacteria, and what we eat is of course related to it. ‘
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Ashton said on Good Morning America on Thursday that she had been following a plant-based diet for the past three weeks and that her bad cholesterol level, or LDL, and her body fat were declining.
“My weight remained the same and I lost one point of the dangerous internal fat, so even someone who only does it one or two days a week can potentially have health benefits,” she said. “My advice is to put your toe in the water.”
“It doesn’t have to be all or nothing,” she said. “You can start with just one day of plant-based eating, then it might lead to two, but listen, if I can do it, anyone can do it.”
What is a plant-based diet?
A plant-based diet is a way of eating that consists mostly or entirely of foods derived from plants, including vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, legumes and fruits.
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Thomas Colin Campbell, a biochemist at Cornell University, accepts responsibility for giving the plant way of eating its name. He said he coined the term in 1980 to “present his diet research to skeptical colleagues at the National Institutes of Health,” according to The New York Times.
“I wanted to emphasize that my work and ideas come entirely from science and not from any ethical or philosophical consideration,” he told the newspaper.
Is a plant diet different from a vegan diet?
Yes, a plant-based diet consists of eating little or no animal foods, while a vegan diet eliminates all animal foods and products – everything from meat and leather products to eggs and cheese, according to Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, a medicine for obesity medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Plant-based diets also differ from vegetarian diets, which, according to Stanford, eliminate all meat, fish and poultry.
Although religious, cultural or ethical reasons often motivate veganism and vegetarianism, plant diets are often practiced for health and environmental reasons.
Plant-based diets also often place the emphasis on whole foods.
“There’s a way to be healthy in one of those,” Stanford told GMA last year. “What I tell my patients is to find the best thing for them, because everyone’s body is different and everyone’s body reacts differently.”
Why is there so much interest in plant-based diets?
Plant-based diets have gradually gained recognition over the past few years, and are often at the top of the annual best diet rankings of US News & World Report.
The 2011 documentary “Forks Over Knives” also really put plant-based diets in the mainstream. The documentary was made by Brian Wendel, who attended a conference on nutrition in 2001, started following a plant-based diet and then brought the idea to the masses with the documentary and a best-selling book.
“The information has been there for a long time, at least from a health perspective, and we just as well helped bring it to a large audience,” Wendel told GMA last year. “I became convinced of the health argument in 2001 and only did it overnight. Up until that point, I had been eating animal products every day.”
More recently, another documentary, ‘The Game Changers’, put plant diets in the spotlight. The 2019 documentary, produced by James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger, shows the journey of a former MMA fighter who gives up meat.
Celebrities like Kim Kardashian West have also been open about adopting a plant-based diet, which has increased interest in the way they eat.
Another factor is the argument that eating plant-based plants is better for the environment, according to Deirdre K. Tobias, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health.
“We see how much land it takes to produce and grow a single hamburger, for example,” she said. “I think the awareness was very striking for a lot of people who may have disregarded the health advice for health reasons.”
What are good things to eat on a plant-based diet?
Wendel, from “Forks Over Knives”, emphasizes eating whole, minimally processed foods within a plant-based diet.
“To me, the best guide is: does the food still look a bit like when you take it out of the ground? When you cook a potato, it still looks like a potato,” he said. “The more a food is like this, the more you can rely on it in your diet and lifestyle for health benefits.”
Of course, fresh vegetables and fruits are a big part of a plant-based diet, as well as nuts, whole grains and legumes. Seafood and meat products can also sometimes be part of a plant diet.
Wendel emphasizes eating more than just vegetables in a plant-based diet to ensure you are consuming enough calories.
“Make starchy foods – beans, rice, sweet potatoes, quinoa, chickpeas – the center of the plate, because it has the energy to sustain you,” he said. “And then surround it with vegetables.”
Plant-based diets reduce the risk of heart disease, dementia, findings in the study originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com