A plant-based diet appears to be the greatest choice overall for human health and lifespan.
Scientists came to that conclusion after doing a comprehensive analysis of data spanning more than 20 years.
A group lead by physician Angelo Capodici of the University of Bologna in Italy has discovered that people who follow vegetarian and vegan diets typically have quantifiably better health outcomes in a number of areas by closely examining scientific literature produced between 2000 and 2023.
This does not imply that you should instantly cut out meat from your diet, as dietary requirements might differ greatly across people.
Over the past ten years or more, a growing number of people have switched to plant-based diets for a variety of reasons, such as better health, lower grocery bills, or less environmental effect. Capodici and his colleagues examined the data on plant-based eating that has significantly increased along with the popularity of greens.
Comparable to a scientific super-review, an umbrella review is a compilation, arrangement, and analysis of information from earlier reviews and meta-analyses of earlier studies. Thus, a review may include, among other things, a variety of studies that have looked at the relationship between vegetarianism and cancer outcomes. A another one might examine cardiovascular health.
Based on an analysis of 48 reviews and meta-analyses published between January 2000 and June 2023, they discovered that vegetarian and vegan diets were linked to improved health on several risk factors for CVD and cancer.
In comparison to omnivorous eaters, these plant-based diets were linked to reduced inflammation, lower body mass index, improved blood sugar and cholesterol regulation, and a lower body mass index. Individuals following plant-based diets showed reduced mortality rates from cardiovascular disease (CVD) and a decreased risk of cancer and heart disease.
However, the team observed that there was no statistically significant difference in the incidence of gestational diabetes and hypertension between pregnant vegan and vegetarian women.
Additionally, they took care to avoid drawing conclusions that these health gains were exclusively attributable to plant-based diets.
“It has also been described that vegetarians, in addition to reduced meat intake, ate less refined grains, added fats, sweets, snacks foods, and caloric beverages than did nonvegetarians and had increased consumption of a wide variety of plant foods,” the researchers write.
Therefore, it makes perfect sense that an omnivore could experience major health gains from eating less processed food and food high in added fat and sugar—rather than necessarily minimizing or eliminating meat.
It’s important to remember that plant-based diets can lead to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Additionally, a cautious and customized approach to food is necessary for a variety of health concerns, including allergies and gastrointestinal disorders.
The constraints of the first research likewise apply to the outcomes of the reanalysis. The researchers advise against the widespread adoption of plant-based diets as a result. Instead, they argue that in order to determine the precise reason why these diets are positively connected with improved health, more focused and detailed research needs to be done.
“Our study,” according to the investigators, “evaluates the different impacts of animal-free diets for cardiovascular health and cancer risk showing how a vegetarian diet can be beneficial to human health and be one of the effective preventive strategies for the two most impactful chronic diseases on human health in the 21st century.”
