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Can a plant based diet reduce risk of all cause death and death from cardiovascular disease?

By Jeremy Johnson, PharmD, PhD on

Plant based diets, also known as vegetarian diets are associated with a variety of health benefits that include lowering cholesterol, cancer, inflammation and more.

The purpose of the study published in the Journal of Nutrition was to determine if plant based diets could reduce the risk of mortality and heart disease.

You can also find studies here describing how plant extracts and phytochemicals can reduce cholesterol.

Here are the study details

The study analyzed data from 11,879 participants ranging in age from 20 to 80 years old

The NHANES III data was used for this study

Human subjects completed a food frequency questionnaire.

This data was collected from 1988 to 1994

Here is what the authors found

An association was found between a health plant based diet and reducing the risk of all cause mortality.

A 5% reduction was found in the overall population.

Take away message
Previous research has found that on average the consumption of polyphenols including flavonoids is generally low. One easy to increase the amount of polyphenols consumed on a daily basis is from fruits and vegetables which are known to contain polyphenols.

This is important because plants are rich source of anti-inflammatory polyphenols. Furthermore, these same compounds have shown benefits in reducing inflammation, cholesterol, and improving antioxidant status.

Here are more articles describing clinical trials for reducing inflammation with plant extracts and phytochemicals.

You can also find studies here describing how plant extracts and phytochemicals can reduce cholesterol.

Reference

Kim et al. Healthy Plant-Based Diets Are Associated with Lower Risk of All-Cause Mortality in US Adults. Journal of Nutrition. 2018; Volume 148 (Issue 4): pages 624-631.

Author
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Jeremy Johnson, PharmD, PhD

Dr. Johnson is a tenured associate Professor and licensed Pharmacist at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy.

His research on plant medicine has led to more than 45 publications and abstracts.This research has been presented at international meetings in the USA, France, Turkey, Peru, Israel, Austria, and Italy.

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