THE ESSENTIAL
- 5% of the world’s population is vegetarian or vegan, which would represent 375 million people.
- The vegan diet reduces the risk of overweight, obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and lowering the “Wrong” Cholesterol: this is the result of a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition on the positive effects of the vegan (or vegan) diet on health and the environment.
This discovery should further comfort the more and more followers to turn to this mode of food for ethical, health and ecological reasons. And at a time when people around the world are feeling the various effects of climate change, it should convert new ones.
Consuming carbohydrates increases the rate of carbon emission
Veganism consists of eliminating all products and foods of animal origin from your plate but also from your consumption (clothes, cosmetics, etc.) which makes it a real healthy lifestyle. Meat, fish, shellfish are no longer consumed, nor eggs, dairy products or honey, unlike the vegetarian diet.
The researchers actually compared these two diets for their study, and they found that a low-carb vegan diet had a significantly lower potential carbon emission value than the high-carb vegetarian diet.
In addition, they also found that the lower the potential carbon value of the diet, the greater the reduction in blood cholesterol.
Vegetarian and vegan diets have similar health effects
However, the health benefits provided by both vegetarian and vegan diets were identical.
The researchers subjected people to these two types of diet for three months, enough time for the metabolism to adapt to what the body consumes. On the one hand, a low-carb vegan diet with no meat, dairy or eggs, supplemented with bread enriched with rapeseed oil and protein-rich vegan meat alternatives. And on the other, a vegetarian version of the standard clinical diet for lowering blood pressure, known as the Dietary Approaches to Stopping Hypertension diet or diet”DASH“which included egg whites and low-fat dairy products, but no meat, say the authors. This diet is prescribed for the treatment of high blood pressure, diabetes and other cardiovascular diseases.
At the end of the study period, they found that both diets had similar effects on weight loss, lowering blood pressure and blood cholesterol.
Changing your diet can be as effective as taking medication
A positive effect on hemoglobin A1c, a marker of blood sugar control, was seen in both groups. Indeed, according to lead author Dr David Jenkins, director of the Clinical Nutrition and Risk Factor Modification Center, a researcher at Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute at St’s Hospital, the participants all reduced their hemoglobin A1c levels by about 1%. This level corresponds to that produced by most drugs.