Whether it's a growing concern for the environment or a deeper understanding of what it really means to be healthy, one thing is clear: more and more people are cutting back or at least reducing their consumption meat and other animal products, for a good reason. In fact, scientists at Harvard University have found that at least a third of premature deaths could be prevented by adopting a meat-free diet.
According to recent figures from the Office for National Statistics, nearly 24% or 141,000 deaths in Britain could be preventable each year, and most of these deaths are due to smoking, alcohol or alcohol. 'obesity.
One third of deaths are preventable each year
According to Dr. Walter Willett, Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard Medical School, the benefits of a plant-based diet have been largely underestimated, as new Harvard figures suggest that at least 200,000 lives could be saved each year if people eliminated meat from their diet.
At the Fourth Vatican International Conference, held in Vatican City, Dr. Willett said that at Harvard Medical School, they made calculations to find out how much mortality could be reduced with Herbal healthy diet, not necessarily vegetarian, and according to the results it is possible that a third of deaths are avoided.
Dr. Willet said that when it comes to deaths, obesity must also be taken into account because it is a cause of death, and not just deaths from cancer.
Towards a vegetarian diet
He also stated that during their studies, they found that a healthy diet is linked to a lower risk of almost all the deadly diseases they were able to examine. Which is not surprising because everything in the body is connected by the same underlying processes.
According to the University of Toronto professor David Jenkins of the UK, who is behind the development of the glycemic index that explains the impact of carbohydrates on blood glucose, the benefits of vegetarianism have been underestimated. He said humans would be better off following a "simian" diet, similar to that of the lowland gorillas that eat stems, leaves, vines and fruits rather than a Paleolithic diet or caveman, which eliminates the carbohydrates but allows the meat.
His team recently partnered with the Bronx Zoo in New York and traveled to Central Africa to record the feeding habits of the gorillas. When they reconstituted the diet of humans on the basis of the gorilla diet that included 63 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, they found a 35% drop in cholesterol in just two weeks, the equivalent of taking statins, which is the treatment medication for raising cholesterol.
The vegetarian diet is rich in protective elements, including vitamins C and E, dietary fiber, folic acid, potassium, magnesium and phytochemicals.
As a result, it has been found that vegetarians have lower total cholesterol than people who eat a lot of meat, low blood pressure and a lower body mass index, all of which are associated with longevity and reduced risk of many chronic diseases.
Vegetarian diet or statins?
Dr. Jenkins explained that there is no real difference between what they got with their diet and what is obtained with statins. For him, there is a choice to make, between changing his diet into a therapeutically significant change or taking statins that are not without dangers.
In France, more than 5 million people take statins to prevent heart disease, these people are often men over 60 years and women over 65 years. But many complain of side effects and stop taking these medications.
According to Dr. Neal Barnard, Ph.D. in Nutrition and Chair of the Committee for Responsible Medicine, people should be aware of the benefits of vegetarianism and veganism for health. He thinks that people imagine that a healthy diet has only a modest effect on the body and that a vegetarian diet only helps to lose some weight, but in reality, when these diets are properly constructed, they are extremely powerful.
Dr. Barnard has argued that a low fat diet (bad fats of course) is better than any other diet for treating diabetes, but also inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. According to him, this is partly due to avoided foods and cholesterol, but also because of the effect of vegetables and fruits that is not undesirable.
