Here are a few resources for the benefits of WFPB eating and comparison to other popular dietary approaches:
- A study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition found that “A low-fat vegan diet improved body weight, lipid concentrations, and insulin sensitivity, both from baseline and compared with a Mediterranean diet. Blood pressure decreased on both diets, more on the Mediterranean diet” SOURCE
- A plant-based diet has been shown to help improve risk factors for heart disease, including hypertension, high cholesterol, atherosclerosis and inflammation.
- Vegetable fat may reduce the risk of stroke, while animal fat increases it. This was pulled from 27 years of data from more than 117,000 health care professionals via the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study
- And check out this article comparing the benefits of a Mediterranean Diet to a Low-Fat Vegan diet which showed: “an average weight loss of 13 pounds (lb), whereas the Mediterranean diet produced no mean change; greater loss of visceral fat than the Mediterranean diet; greater loss of fat mass (about 7.5 lb more; reduction of LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol levels, while the Mediterranean diet produced no significant changes, reduced insulin resistance and increased insulin sensitivity, while the Mediterranean diet caused no significant changes. Both diets led to a drop in blood pressure, but the Mediterranean diet reduced it by about 6.0 mm Hg and the vegan diet decreased it by 3.2mmHg.”
Recommended watching:
- Game Changers (on Netflix)
- Forks over Knives (streaming for free!)
- What the Health
Recommended reading:
- Ornish Living – Dr. Dean Ornish’s lifestyle approach to reclaim your health & undo disease
- NutritionFacts.org from Michael Greger, M.D. offers over 2,000 articles and videos – just search the specific topics that interest you to read/watch evidence based information to help you make healthy choices
- The Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine offers a ton of research as well on a variety of topics – click HERE to search
- Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and was one of the first researchers to promote a whole foods plant based approach to disease prevention and treatment.
- Dr. Michael Klaper has served thousands of people on their journey to reclaim health through proper nutrition and a balanced lifestyle for over 40 years.
- Veganuary has a ton of information & recipes
- Plant Strong is also full of great info & recipes
- No Meat Athlete covers all the bases regarding plant based eating as it relates to athletic performance
Personally, I can say that I have eaten fully plant-based (“vegan”) for 5 years. I have had two body scans that show that my body composition (muscle mass, fat mass) are ideal and my lab values are now all normal whereas they weren’t before eating a WHOLE FOODS plant based diet (you *can* be a junk food vegan and live on Oreos & french fries, but that doesn’t yield the same results as when eating whole unprocessed foods). I also used this approach to lose 65 pounds and keep it off for nearly 5 years. Some may call a whole foods plant based approach “extreme”, but that’s fine – I want to be extremely healthy, not moderately healthy, and it’s easier than ever to follow this way of eating!
*always speak with your healthcare provider before changing your diet or exercise routine – this is not medical advice*