vegan

Posted on March 5, 2024March 4, 2024 Diet, Patient Talk

Swapping meat for Quorn lowers bad cholesterol by 10 per cent

Regularly substituting meat for mycoprotein such as Quorn could help to lower bad cholesterol by 10-percent, which is comparable to switching to a Mediterranean or vegan diet.

New research by the University of Exeter, published in Clinical Nutrition, also found substituting meat for Quorn reduces blood glucose and c-peptide concentrations associated with diabetes, cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality.

With one in six UK adults suffering from raised cholesterol, the findings indicate that mycoprotein – the high protein, high-fibre food source that’s the main ingredient in Quorn – could play a key role in cholesterol management and improving heart health.

Dr George Pavis, of University of Exeter, led the study and said: “We’re really excited about these results and what they mean for public health. Previous laboratory studies, where all food eaten is controlled and alcohol and caffeine consumption regulated, have clearly shown that daily consumption of mycoprotein reduces bad cholesterol. But this is the first study of its kind to explore the impact of such a dietary intervention in a real-world, home-based setting where participants were not restricted in terms of what else they consumed or did.

“The findings demonstrate that introducing Quorn foods into a diet on a regular basis helps to significantly lower bad cholesterol, blood glucose and c-peptide concentrations, which is important for boosting heart health and reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease.

“It was particularly interesting to see the scale of the impact that Quorn consumption had in terms of reducing harmful cholesterol, with its performance over four weeks comparable to what we might expect to see from well-established approaches, such as following a Mediterranean diet.”

The remotely delivered study involved 72 overweight adults with high cholesterol levels. Researchers found that participants who ate 180g of Quorn products on a daily basis – equivalent to two servings of Quorn mince – saw a 10-percent reduction in ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol over the four-week study period. This equates to a 0.3 millimole per litre (mmol/l) decrease in bad cholesterol levels in less than one month.

Research has shown how more wholesale healthy dietary changes, such as switching to a Mediterranean or vegan diet, will typically deliver a 0.2 – O.3 mmol/l reduction in bad cholesterol levels after 12 weeks. Researchers at the University of Exeter also noted that typical doses of atorvastatin, the most popular statin prescribed by the NHS to treat high cholesterol, commonly yield a 0.3 – 1.3 mmol/l reduction after 12 months.

According to medical research, a decrease of 0.39 mmol/l in bad cholesterol levels is associated with a 25% lower lifetime risk of heart and circulatory disease. With pharmaceutical trials suggesting that reductions increase in a linear way over time, the researchers suggested further studies should be undertaken to see if the results improve even further when Quorn is eaten over a longer period.

The study – which saw half of the participants (39) given meat and fish products to eat on a daily basis as part of their regular diet, while the other half (33) were provided with Quorn products – also revealed further heart health benefits.

High blood sugar levels and c-peptide concentrations are commonly associated with diabetes and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. The researchers found that study participants who ate Quorn products experienced, on average, a 13-percent drop in blood glucose levels and a 27-percent fall in c-peptide concentrations, compared with the control group. With current data showing that 2.4 million people are at an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in the UK based on high blood sugar levels, these findings demonstrate how mycoprotein could also play a key role in tackling a disease that currently costs an estimated £14 billion a year to treat.

The findings come after the latest annual Health Survey for England estimated that well over half (59-percent) of adults suffer from raised cholesterol and one in ten from diabetes, with both conditions known to cause cardiovascular disease – meaning millions of people could be at risk of a potentially fatal heart attack or stroke.

Sam Blunt, Quorn’s director of sustainability and corporate affairs, said: “The potential cholesterol-lowering effects of Quorn’s mycoprotein were first identified nearly four decades ago and, since then, numerous studies have helped us to understand more about the extent of its cholesterol management capabilities, with its high-fibre content thought to play a key role in this.

“While the benefits of adopting a Mediterranean diet are clear, it’s not always easy to do and this study highlights how, by simply introducing Quorn products into their diet on a regular basis, people may be able to quickly reduce their cholesterol levels and improve their heart health with minimal effort.”

Posted on February 2, 2024February 2, 2024 Diet

Switching to a vegan or ketogenic diet rapidly impacts the immune system.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health observed rapid and distinct immune system changes in a small study of people who switched to a vegan or a ketogenic (also called keto) diet. Scientists closely monitored various biological responses of people sequentially eating vegan and keto diets for two weeks, in random order. They found that the vegan diet prompted responses linked to innate immunity—the body’s non-specific first line of defence against pathogens—while the keto diet prompted responses associated with adaptive immunity—pathogen-specific immunity built through daily life exposure and vaccination. Metabolic changes and shifts in the participants’ microbiomes—communities of bacteria living in the gut—were also observed. More research is needed to determine if these changes are beneficial or detrimental and how they could affect nutritional interventions for diseases such as cancer or inflammatory conditions.

Scientific understanding of how different diets impact the human immune system and microbiome is limited. Therapeutic nutritional interventions—which involve changing the diet to improve health—are poorly understood, and few studies have directly compared the effects of more than one diet. The keto diet is a low-carbohydrate diet that is generally high in fat. The vegan diet eliminates animal products and tends to be high in fibre and low in fat.

The study was conducted by researchers from the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) at the Metabolic Clinical Research Unit in the NIH Clinical Center. The 20 participants were diverse with respect to ethnicity, race, gender, body mass index (BMI), and age. Each person ate as much as desired of one diet (vegan or keto) for two weeks, followed by as much as desired of the other diet for two weeks. People on the vegan diet, which contained about 10% fat and 75% carbohydrates, chose to consume fewer calories than those on the keto diet, which contained about 76% fat and 10% carbohydrates. Blood, urine, and stool were collected for analysis throughout the study period. The effects of the diets were examined using a “multi-omics” approach that analyzed multiple data sets to assess the body’s biochemical, cellular, metabolic, and immune responses, as well as changes to the microbiome. Participants remained on site for the entire month-long study, allowing for careful control of the dietary interventions.

Switching exclusively to the study diets caused notable changes in all participants. The vegan diet significantly impacted pathways linked to the innate immune system, including antiviral responses. On the other hand, the keto diet led to significant increases in biochemical and cellular processes linked to adaptive immunity, such as pathways associated with T and B cells. The keto diet affected levels of more proteins in the blood plasma than the vegan diet and proteins from a wider range of tissues, such as the blood, brain and bone marrow. The vegan diet promoted more red blood cell-linked pathways, including those involved in heme metabolism, which could be due to the higher iron content of this diet. Additionally, both diets produced changes in the participants’ microbiomes, causing shifts in the abundance of gut bacterial species previously linked to the diets. The keto diet was associated with changes in amino acid metabolism—an increase in human metabolic pathways for the production and degradation of amino acids and a reduction in microbial pathways for these processes—which might reflect the higher amounts of protein consumed by people on this diet.

The distinct metabolic and immune system changes caused by the two diets were observed despite the diversity of the participants, which shows that dietary changes consistently affect widespread and interconnected pathways in the body. More study is needed to examine how these nutritional interventions affect specific immune system components. According to the authors, the results of this study demonstrate that the immune system responds surprisingly rapidly to nutritional interventions. The authors suggest that it may be possible to tailor diets to prevent disease or complement disease treatments, such as by slowing processes associated with cancer or neurodegenerative disorders.

Posted on September 11, 2023September 11, 2023 Diet

Eating a vegan diet could reduce grocery bill 16%, a savings of more than $500 a year, finds new research

Food costs decrease 16% on a low-fat vegan diet, a savings of more than $500 a year, compared to a diet that includes meat, dairy, and other animal products, according to a new analysis from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine published in JAMA Network Open.

“We knew that a vegan diet significantly reduces your risk of conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity—and now we have proof that opting for beans instead of beef will also lead to significant savings on your grocery bill,” says study co-author Hana Kahleova, MD, PhD, director of clinical research at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

The research is an analysis of a Physicians Committee study in which participants were randomly assigned to a vegan group or control group. The vegan group was asked to follow a low-fat vegan diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes, while the control group was requested to make no diet changes. Calorie intake and food costs were not limited for either group.

For the food cost assessment, the participants’ dietary records were linked to food price data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Thrifty Food Plan, 2021.

Total food costs decreased in the vegan group by 16%, or $1.51 per day, compared with no significant change in the control group. This decrease was mainly attributable to savings on meat, -$1.77 per day, and dairy, -$0.74 per day. Changes in purchases of other food groups (e.g., eggs and added fats) also contributed to the observed savings.

These savings outweighed the increased spending on vegetables, +$1.03 per day; fruits, +$0.40 per day; legumes, +$0.30 per day; whole grains, +$0.30 per day, and meat and dairy alternatives.

The findings support previous research showing that a plant-based diet provides more cost savings than one that includes animal products.

In addition to the cost savings, the study found that a low-fat vegan diet resulted in weight loss and improved body composition and insulin sensitivity in overweight adults.

Posted on March 1, 2023March 1, 2023 Diabetes, Diet

Plant-based low-carbohydrate diet linked with lower risk of premature death for people with type 2 diabetes

Adhering to a plant-based low-carbohydrate diet was associated with a reduction in overall cardiovascular and cancer mortality among people with type 2 diabetes
Researchers observed the most substantial health benefits among people who not only adhered to this diet but also had other healthy habits, such as exercising, not smoking, and consuming alcohol in moderate amounts

Following a low-carbohydrate diet comprised primarily of plant-based foods was significantly associated with a lower risk of premature death among people with type 2 diabetes, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. It is the first prospective cohort study to examine the relationship between low-carbohydrate diet patterns and mortality among people with diagnosed type 2 diabetes.

“While avoiding refined and highly-processed carbohydrates has been widely recommended to lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, our study provides the first empirical evidence on how low-carb diets can help manage the progression of existing diabetes,” said lead author Yang Hu, research associate in the Department of Nutrition.

The researchers analyzed 34 years of health data from 7,224 women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study and 2,877 men participating in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, all of whom developed type 2 diabetes after those studies began. The participants completed questionnaires on lifestyle and medical history every other year, allowing the researchers to assess the compositions of their diets and score them according to intake of animal proteins and fats, vegetable proteins and fats, high-quality carbohydrates, and low-quality carbohydrates.

The findings showed a 24% reduction in all-cause mortality among those adhering to a low-carbohydrate dietary pattern. The health benefits were stronger for low-carbohydrate diets emphasising plant-based foods and high-quality carbohydrates, such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Those diets were also associated with lower cardiovascular disease and cancer mortality. Low-carbohydrate diets emphasising animal products and low-quality carbohydrates, such as potatoes, added sugars, and refined grains, were not significantly associated with lower mortality.

The researchers observed the strongest health benefits among people adhering to other healthy habits, such as not smoking, regularly exercising, and drinking alcohol in moderation, alongside a plant-based low-carbohydrate diet.

“This study, once again, underscores the importance of diet quality when choosing among various diets for diabetes control and management,” said Qi Sun, senior author and associate professor in the Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology.

Posted on August 25, 2021August 25, 2021 Fibromyalgia

New Study: Vegan Diet vs Fibromyalgia

A recent 2021 review looked at several studies showing the effects that a vegan diet had on fibromyalgia, a painful disease that mostly affects women. Also covered: What is fibromyalgia? / What causes fibromyalgia?