Old associations do NOT prove plant-based diets contribute to heart health
Headlines in CNN Health claim that eating mostly plants is the path to better health and living longer. This is a message we have heard many times before, with the only problem being the science doesn’t back the claims. Could this time be different?
CNN Health: Eat more plants and less meat to live longer and improve heart health, study suggests
Spoiler alert. No. It is not any different this time.
The study in question, published in the Journal of The American Heart Association, was a retrospective look at the ARIC observational study data. Middle aged men and women from four US cities were enrolled in the late 1980s. Researchers followed them all the way until 2016 collecting volumes of data about who developed heart disease, who died, and who lived. That is relatively indisputable data. You are either alive or dead. You either had a heart attack or didn’t.
The problem with the study, however, is with the rest of the data. Subjects completed an initial food frequency questionnaire at the time of enrollment and again, a few years later. Then that was the end of the food data. Any changes in dietary habits that happened after 1995 went unmeasured. That means there is 21 years of dietary information missing from the study. And, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the poor quality, often unreliable data that food frequency questionnaires tend to generate.
Once again, we need to question the accuracy of results from such a study. As we have mentioned many times, healthy user bias is the most likely explanation for the seemingly beneficial effects from eating more plants. This study can’t discern if healthier people ate more plants, or if eating more plants made people healthier. And until a study can determine that, we are left with conjecture, not science.
Do you need more evidence that this is not good science? Of those who had the lowest plant diet score at enrollment, 68% graduated high school. Compare that to the 85% in the highest plant-based score. Did eating more plants make them smarter and give them more opportunities to graduate? Or could it have been the other way around? (Don’t worry, that was a rhetorical question. It is most likely the other way around; the point is that this study can’t prove it, one way or the other.)
Furthermore, 27% of those with the lowest plant-based score were obese compared to just 14% of those with the highest. Likewise, 32% of the lowest plant-based score were smokers compared to 16% of those with the highest.
I could go on poking holes in the data, but I assume you get my point.
In fact, no actual research was even done to produce this latest study. Instead, data from the ARIC observational study was mined for associations. Numbers are crunched, a study is published, and headlines result. We wrote about a similar headline in March that generated concerns about atrial fibrillation based on data extracted from ARIC. And last summer, we wrote about another concerning headline, again based on mining ARIC data. All of these “studies” were completed without any additional research, yet they all made headlines.
In the 1980’s, people who made healthier life choices also tended to eat more plants and less meat. That is all this study shows. Any other conclusions are pure guesswork, not science.
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They also increasingly insist that we should eat plant based diets to save the planet.
That was all fine, if it was really true that this was also the kind of diet best for our health.
But what if lots of people would damage their health by adopting a plant based diet?
Would the environment still benefit considering the financial and environmental cost of the increased medical care?
I think we should not trade our health for the health of the planet.
Rather we should find a way how stay healthy AND save the planet.
Even if the health aspect doesnt convince you, there are enough environmental and animal welfare reasons to eat less meat. Just go visit a factory farm if you feel skeptical.
Gum disease(also root canals), low vitamin D3 and K2, obesity(major cause of inflammation)-visceral body fat,
laziness(poor shape), trans fats, poor omega6/omega3 ratios,
smoking(duh), stress is HUGE, lack of enough magnesium, drinking
enough water, eating too much(gluttony), high insulin levels-NOT glucose(a less acurate
measurement), poor meat
quality(hormones and antibiotics),
cholesterol is NOT the problem-
oxidized cholesterol is, meat preparation(barbecue is horrible), iron overload, lack of adequate vitamin c, low co-Q10 levels, low nitric oxide levels, poor and inadequate sleep(apnea), oops almost forgot-stress causes high cortisol, and high fructose intake. NOTICE..vegans it's not that simple!!! When I was in college we were taught how to think, not what to think.
BTW, this is my short list.
Don S.
Even ketogenic diets can reportedly be done in a vegan way, but that is a challenge not going to be possible if people do it without knowledge or on the basis of fake knowledge. And there is a lot of fake knowledge out there.
Additionally, somehow the damage done by the mainstream diet recommendations must be addressed.
In order to do that, you have to rebuild people's trust and finally do the science right.
While some people can be convinced with pure emotional "arguments", others will only trust if you don't make simple claims and prove that you are not relying on pseudo science. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of pseudo science being done as dietdoctor and others frequently reveal. As far as I am concerned, my alarm bells ring at the slightest indication of emotional "arguments", oversimplified claims or repetitions of the exact same assertions without variations.
That was all fine, if it was really true that this was also the kind of diet best for our health.
But what if lots of people would damage their health by adopting a plant based diet?
Would the environment still benefit considering the financial and environmental cost of the increased medical care?"
Guard:
What kind of sandwich ain't too fattening?
Jelly:
A half a sandwich.
https://youtu.be/htUIdAY33Mo
Tsemane people from Bolivia have been recently acknowledged to be the healthiest people on earth, just slightly ahead of Hadza from Tanzania. Both peoples are of the few hunters-gatherers still remaining on earth. Both consume high carbohydrate, low fat, low protein diets, but they are not vegans, or vegetarians. What's more disturbing, Hadza's diet contains 15-20 % calorie intake from honey - a devastating hit to paleo or keto followers...
For those who can't religiously follow the hunger-games of HG, like Tsemane, or even Hadza, keto is still the next best thing, without starvation, unless one has a tumor to starve...
But just like Jelly in "Analyze This" said, ‘A half a sandwich’ diet, even on keto, is the best way to go…😉
But I try to balance all effects.
If a plant-based diet damages health then either health care or death rates increase. Surely, in a developed country, it is not the latter that happens. But more health care not only costs more but also uses more natural resources and increases CO2 output.
The big question is i.e. if the the decreased CO2 output in food production can outweigh the increased CO2 output due to medical care.
To what extent a real-life plant-based diet damages/benefits on average is of course debated. But on the other hand, the evidence that meat is unhealthy is very weak at best.
I rin 3 hours every morning. I can run ultras over 100 miles. I honestly look half my age. No lie. I am slim. I have no need for doctors. My thinking is clear. I will be 60 in 2 weeks. I feel 30
Dont tell me a plant based diet is bad for your health. Dont tell me meat is good for your health. I dont need studies to confirm what I already know. I am living proof that being vegan is the ultimate health diet. But you obviously want to be in denial..
Can lifestyle changes reverse coronary heart disease? The Lifestyle Heart Trial.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1973470
If so, this was a study on lifestyle changes which included low-fat vegetarian diet, smoking cessation, stress management, moderate exercise.
You cannot tell if the regression of CHD is caused by a low-fat vegetarian diet. It was a multifactorial study, and as such can’t conclude such a thing.
Nowhere in the article does Dr Scher claim that a plant based diet is bad for your health. Nowhere does he claim that meat is good for your health. He just points out the problem and the weak methodology and evidence in THIS study in this article.
He might have those views, but that is not what this article is about.