Proof of Plant-Based Benefits

• Posted by Soya Life |
• Jun 30, 2020

Research on a Plant-based diet and disease

Food can change our lives

One certainty in life is that we will all die at one or another stage. Good health allows us to fully enjoy the time we do have in this life. It is about being as functional as possible throughout our entire lives and avoiding disabling, painful and lengthy battles with disease.

Food CAN change our lives. Many chronic illnesses can be prevented, even reversed, by eating the right foods. We need to better understand the power of good food, and use this power for our own health, that of our families and communities around us.

Let’s dig a little deeper – and understand a bit more about HOW GOOD DIET is THE MOST POWERFUL TOOL AND WEAPON we have against disease and sickness.

Research and science show incredible findings for plant-based diets

Lower Death Rates

During the mid-1980s through to the 2000s, a major twenty-year epidemiological research study (China-Cornell-Oxford Project) was carried out in China (65 counties and 6500 participants), investigating mortality rates from cancer and other chronic diseases.

The evidence from more than 8000 statistically significant associations were documented between lifestyle, diet, and disease variables.  The evidence was overwhelming in support of a plant-based diet as a foundation for a healthy lifestyle and improved mortality rate.

In short, it was concluded that countries with high consumption of animal-based foods were more likely to have had higher death rates from “Western” diseases while the opposite was true for counties that ate more plant-based foods. ^(1,2)

Combat Cancer and Aging

Other prominent researchers such as Dr Dean Ornish and Dr Elizabeth Blackburn carried out some ground-breaking research in 2009, where they found that three months of whole-food, plant-based nutrition and other healthy changes can boost the production of the enzyme telomerase (anti-ageing enzyme found in human cells), and as such combat cancer and age-related diseases.

A subsequent five-year follow-up study showed that those in the healthy living group had boosted levels of telomeres (higher than when they started out on the study) compared with the control group (the group who did not change their lifestyles), suggesting that a healthy lifestyle can actually reverse cellular ageing to a large degree.

Prevent, Treat, Or Even Reverse Disease

Over the past two decades, there has been further research substantiating most of the findings in this research.  Some of the findings:

1. A more plant-based diet may help prevent, treat, or even reverse every single one of our leading causes of death from lifestyle disease:

• Coronary Heart Disease
• Diabetes Mellitus
• Stroke
• Lung Diseases (Including COPD: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)
• Cancer
• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Infections  (Respiratory and Blood)
• Kidney Disease
• Mental Health Issues
• Dietary changes from an animal-based-protein diet to a plant-based-protein diet (specifically soya) may improve your health at a genetic level, potentially boosting your ability to fight disease, such as genetically inherited breast cancer.
• Higher (than typical) fibre intakes are consistently associated with lower rates of cancers of the rectum and colon and lower blood cholesterol levels. To eat more fibre one must eat more plant-based foods!

The evidence is clear: Eating a plant-based diet can truly change your life.

And it might just save your life too.

Look out for our next article where we share a step-by-step guide to Plant-Based eating.

References and acknowledgements:

1. The China Study (Ref: Chen, J. and Campbell, TC et al “Diet, lifestyle and mortality in China. A study of the characteristics of 65 Chinese counties” Oxford, UK, 1990.
2. Campbell, TC, Chen J, Brun T et al “China: from diseases of poverty to diseases of affluence. Policy implications of the epidemiological transition” Ecol. Food Nutr. 27 1992).
3. Dr M. Greger: “How Not to Die”: this book is highly recommended reading.