Results Of Adventist Health Study On Diet(96,000 people), Epic Oxford(65,000 people), Tzu Chi

Intro

and the evidence for plant-based diets continues to grow so we won one of sort of the I think the most compelling of all of the types of research is when you follow groups groups of people for many years and look at what they’re doing their lifestyles their diets and see who gets what disease

and we actually have been following three populations for many years so three cohorts the first being the Adventist Health Study – which is over ninety six thousand seventh-day Adventists from North America this study began in 2002 and is ongoing the second is epic Oxford with over 65 thousand individuals from the UK it began in 1993 and is ongoing and the SUCI Health Study with over six thousand participants and these are Buddhist some who are meat eaters some who are vegetarians it began in 2007 and is ongoing

and I want to just mention one thing that’s important to know about these three cohorts and that is that people in these cohorts diet about half the rate of the general population whether they’re meat eaters or vegetarians they all are health-conscious individuals and so when we compare the meat eaters with the vegetarians we’re comparing people that exercise the same amount smoked the same amount drink the same amount so it’s a very fair comparison we’re controlling for all of these variables

Similar Healthy Lifestyles; Different Dietary Patterns

so what are the findings I’m just gonna touch on some of the interesting findings of these various studies so with cardiovascular disease compared to similar health-conscious non vegetarians or meat eaters in epoch Oxford the vegetarians and vegans had about 32% less heart disease and in the Adventist Health Study 2 there were 23% there was 23% lower risk of heart disease among lacto-ovo vegetarian men and 42% lower risk of heart disease among vegan men although there were no differences among the women

Cardiovascular Disease

hypertension in the Adventist Health Study – compared to similar health-conscious non vegetarians the risk of hypertension was 55% lower among lacto-ovo vegetarians and 75% lower among the vegans and the the results of epic Oxford actually was quite similar in the Adventist Health Study – the rates of diabetes were 38% lower among lacto-ovo vegetarians and 62% lower among vegans

Hypertension – AHS-2

in the Suchi study diabetes the rates of diabetes were were 51% lower among vegetarian are near vegan men compared to the non vegetarians and 74 to 75 percent lower among the women a non-alcoholic fatty liver disease the Suchi this is a study that that just came out in 2018 compared to similar health-conscious non vegetarians non-alcoholic fatty liver disease was 21 percent lower among the vegetarians and if you replace soy with meat or fish the risk increased 12 to 13 percent and if you replaced whole grains with refined grains the risk increased 3 to 12 percent

cancer comparing to the health-conscious meat-eaters epic Oxford showed 11 percent lower risk among lacto-ovo vegetarians and 19 percent lower risk among vegans in the Adventist Health Study – an 8 percent lower risk among lacto-ovo vegetarians and a 16 percent lower risk among vegans

Breast Cancer – Tzu Chi

breast cancer compared again to the similar health-conscious non vegetarians the risk of breast cancer was 58% lower among the near vegan participants and daily soy isoflavone intake was associated with a 63% lower risk so remember that we’re going to come back to soy a little bit later

cataracts epic Oxford showed a 30 percent lower risk among lacto-ovo vegetarians and a 40 percent lower risk among vegans a diverticular disease epic

Diverticular Disease EPIC-Oxford

Oxford again showed a 27 percent lower risk among lacto-ovo vegetarians and a 72 percent lower risk among vegans

Kidney Disease

kidney disease in the Adventist Health Study 252 percent less kidney disease among the vegetarians and vegans and in epic Oxford compared to those with a high median take more than three and a half ounces a day the vegetarians and vegans combined had 31 percent fewer kidney stones so these are pretty compelling numbers and what we can deduct from all of that is is plant-based diets are highly protective against chronic disease

but not only are they highly protective against chronic disease they provide a very safe and powerful treatment option in many cases reversing chronic diseases so if we look at treatment outcomes well for cardiovascular disease they are as far as I know the only diets that have ever been shown to prove reversal of heart disease diabetes plant-based diets improve insulin resistance insulin sensitivity they improve our our blood lipids and in many cases we do see reversal of diabetes as well

Treatment Outcomes

and for cancer plant-based diets have been shown to favorably alter genetic expression reduce cancer cell growth decrease DNA damage and so improving or reducing risk for cancer and of course the side effects with treatment using plant-based diets are all worth having you tend to increase your life expectancy Lou wait you improve your lipids you improve fasting glucose you improve expression of genes you reduce your risk of other chronic diseases whereas with medications and surgeries the side effects are not always so positive