Are You Familiar With These 4 Large studies On Diet And Health? What Did They Conclude? What About

Intro

[Music] for people unfamiliar with you please just tell us your name a little bit about your background and really what you've been doing for the last several years well I my name is brenda Davis I'm a.

Who am I

Registered dietitian and I became a registered dietitian in 1983 so I have been doing this a long time I became vegetarian pretty much vegan by 1990 and and it was an interesting little journey because I was a actually a public health nutritionist in Northern Ontario I had met one real ly vegetarian in my whole.

Becoming a vegetarian

Life and that was it and I remember making the decision and my husband asking my husband if he would be willing to become vegetarian with me we had been married about 10 years at that point well at that yeah 99 we were married in 78 so anyway he he looked at me and he said I thought you'd never ask oh I would love to be a vegetarian so I count myself a very very fortunate in that regard because he grew up in Northern Ontario where it's.

It's hunting fishing territory so anyway my journey was I became vegetarian moved out west to the west coast and in 92 wrote my first book with my writing colleague vesanto melina and Victoria Harrison and within probably six or eight months it was a national bestseller and and then we you know we just my writing partner vesanto and I continued writing and so I've done I would say ten now ten of edge eteri in classics if you will and I'm working on my eleventh which is a.

Diabetes book and and so have been very actively involved in the plant-based world for about thirty years and the books becoming vegetarian and becoming vegan and now we've got the big becoming vegan and and I've done diabetes books and so on and and the other thing that I've done that I think is kind of interesting is in 1990 No 2000 and six it was I was asked to be a part of a research project in the Marshall Islands where they have the highest rates of diabetes.

On the planet and and so I became involved in that work and.

Lifestyle medicine

I've still I'm still involved in that work and in it it's been quite an experience of lifestyle medicine has really come into the picture for me in fact last year I along with dr. John Kelly who was the founding president of the American College of lifestyle medicine we actually did an intervention in Lithuania as a demonstration for the medical school and the government what you can do in 10 days using a pretty carefully designed plant-based diet and and then we proceeded I had a press conference.

Afterwards and so that's a direction that we're moving in is did you know these sort of demonstrations to allow physicians to see how powerful this form of medicine can actually be are you familiar with any of these studies and if so can you tell us what they concluded number one the more recent meta-analysis of all the best studies that showed a 31 percent increase in mortality for people who ate a ketogenic diet number two Gary Frazier's adventists health studies number three regarde studies showing the African.

American diet is deadly and number four Walter Willett Nurses Health Study and the health professional follow-up study okay that's a lot the first one regarding ketogenic diet I actually don't believe it was a ketogenic it was a low carbohydrate diet that they were looking at we don't actually have really long-term studies of people on ketogenic diets but definitely we have them on people doing low carbohydrate diets and consistently there is there are no exceptions that I am aware of in all of the meta-analysis the 2018.

Study in particular was was were quite interesting but they all show increased mortality of at least 30% some even higher we've got some that show increased mortality of 51% so but but in the lowest carbohydrate eaters but what you have to understand is they're really three places you get macronutrients carbohydrates fat and protein when you lower carbohydrates it means you're increasing fat and protein where do people who are doing low-carb tend to get their fat and protein often from animal products because animal products are free.

Of carbohydrates with the exception of dairy products which contain some lactose which is a carbohydrate of course so a lot of meat and and we know that meat is linked to increased risk of cancer diabetes heart disease and so forth so it's not any you know surprise in my view that we're seeing increased death rates and people eating low carb diets because they're eating a lot of meat and and I think that the other thing for people to realize is that you know ketogenic diets.

Weight loss

In particular do work to accelerate waist weight loss people lose weight on these diets but what we have to understand is that weight loss you can achieve weight loss doing anything that produces a caloric deficit in this case you're not providing enough glucose for the body so it has to resort to an alternative fuel you you can lose weight smoking cigarettes you can lose weight going on chemotherapy doesn't mean it's a good idea and and I think that's that's the key with a ketogenic diet you're.

Eating mostly fat you're eating 75 to 80 percent of calories from fat generally you're eating about 5% at most carbohydrates while plant foods provide between about 60 and 90 percent of calories from carbohydrate even non starchy vegetables average about 58 percent the only exception is nuts and seeds at about 12% when you're trying to get down to 5% so what you're reducing is the most protective foods on the planet plant foods the foods with the most fiber phytochemicals antioxidants plant sterols and stanols and all of.

These protective the prebiotics that feed healthy gut microbiome so in time you're gonna pay the price for doing that we need to maximize protective components not minimize them and and so that's that's you know the whole bit about the low carb diets with the Adventist Health Study – they're actually you know I want to bring in a couple of other studies here because there are actually three studies that have followed populations who are sort of similar health-conscious individuals over a period of time to see who.

Develops what disease the biggest is the Adventist Health Study – with about ninety six thousand participants started in 2002 and is has been ongoing ever since and in this particular population what we see is so we're comparing meat-eaters with semi vegetarians with fish eaters with lacto-ovo vegetarians and then vegans so you've got all of these different groups of people eating different diets but living similar lifestyles so they smoke the same amount they exercise the same amount they drink the same amount of alcohol you know we're.

Controlling for all of these variables so it's a very fair comparison in the end so in this case in the Seventh day Adventist Health Study what we see is that is that the more you remove animal products the better people seem to do in terms of a variety of of endpoints and so hard endpoints so we're looking at diabetes rates are about believe it's us 38% lower for lacto-ovo vegetarians than the meat-eating the similar health-conscious meat-eaters and about 62 percent lower for the vegans and so.

Diabetes we see lower rates of heart disease not so much in the women in the seventh-day adventists hell steady but huge differences in the men with the vegans having by far the lowest rates of heart disease about 42% lower than the meat-eaters we see lower rates of cancer in the Adventist Health Study to was about 16% lower for vegans and about 8% lower for the lacto-ovo vegetarians and specific cancers were even more pronounced kidney disease was about I think it was 52% lower in the vegetarians.

And vegans combined in no epic Oxford a very similar kind of study following about 65,000 individuals since 1993 they saw a reduced risk of cataracts you know 40% less in the vegans 30% less and lacto-ovo vegetarians they saw lower rates of what is it though shoot him I'm blanking right now a gastro intestinal polyps are these kinds of things and it was twenty seven percent lower in lacto-vegetarian 72 percent lower in the the vegans so a very profound difference and and then in in the Taiwanese.

Study which was over six thousand people they they've had similar reports they're comparing their the Buddhists vegetarians versus the and this is the suci group the sushi Health Study and and again lower rates of diabetes and the vegetarians compared to the similar non vegetarians about 51 percent for the men and about 74 to 75 percent in the women and they just had a brand new study 2018 that just came out showing about a 21% lower rate of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in the in the vegetarian.

And the vegetarians in that community are almost vegan there might be a live little bit of egg that sneaks in there are tiny bit of dairy but very very minimal so we've seen I think these studies are really among the best studies we have long-term looking at the consequences of eating you know living relatively healthfully and eating slightly different dietary patterns from you know the extreme of the meat eaters to the vegans and so it's interesting.

Nutritional Status

And the other things that these studies have looked at particularly the Adventist Health Health Study and epic Oxford is nutritional status of the individuals and and in the Adventist Health Study the results have been very positive in that regard even calcium and b12 are they're in good shape aware is an epoch Oxford the calcium and b12 they weren't as in good shape there are fewer fortified foods you know see the non-dairy milks and so on that would provide those nutrients they're not fortified as much so.

We saw more b12 deficiency and more fracture rates higher fracture rates in the vegans in that study but with the fracture rates what was really interesting was that the the the people that were consuming under five hundred and twenty five milligrams of calcium a day they had about a 30% increased risk of fractures but the people who were consuming more than that didn't have any difference in fracture rates compared to the meat-eaters so I think that the lesson in that one was really that we still.

Need to be conscious about including good sources of calcium and we you know most of our nutrition education for the public teaches you that dairy products are your source of calcium and so we need to take it upon ourselves to learn about good dietary sources of calcium in the plant-based world and then the other studies the third study what was that one again the because that one I wasn't as familiar with the regard study the regard study I'm probably familiar with it but not familiar with.

The name yeah regarde studies showing the African American diet is deadly oh yeah so okay yeah I mean we've we've got dozens of he's showing the African or the you know the African American diet is is deadly it's very similar to what we call the Western diet but in some ways it can be even worse because we're looking at often even more sodium and even more fat because there are a lot of deep fried foods and just a lot of right foods period and so it's.

Hugely concerning because it is certainly genetically there's an increased risk for higher blood pressure and that increases your risk for all the cardiovascular diseases and peripheral artery disease and so on and so forth so it's a huge concern and I'm you know heartened to see so many people in the african-american community who are really getting on to understanding this and and being advocates for a really healthy whole food plant-based diet so I I can see.

Nurses Health Study

Changes will come but it really is a greater challenge there I think in some some respects and then the fourth study that you mentioned was the Walter Willett Nurses Health Study oh well the Nurses Health Study has been a study that you know people have been followed they're two studies they're really there's a health professionals follow-up study and the Nurses Health Study and these studies have been combined in you know meta analyses and so forth to provide the results of following groups of individuals nurses and.

Physicians mostly for about 30 years in most cases 27 to 32 years and looking at again the health outcomes and again we've got some powerful evidence that meat increases risk of heart disease and diabetes and other other diseases and we've got a lot of evidence for you know of higher fiber higher fruits and vegetables reducing risk of disease very consistent in these studies and there are literally dozens these studies that are out and and one of the things people can always do you have an interest.

In a specific area is to go to PubMed all you need to do it's free you just type in whatever you're looking for heart disease Nurses Health Study just simple words press the Go button and and the studies start popping up and you can actually read at least the abstracts these studies aren't always free but they are some of them are free but the abstracts are always free and you can get an idea of what the findings were so it can be really really interesting to.

Do that [Music] you [Music].