Omnivore vs Vegan: Which is Better?
A healthy vegan diet is better for your cardio-metabolic than a healthy diet that includes meat, a new study conducted in identical twins suggests. The report, published in JAMA Network on Thursday, found that those who ate a healthy vegan diet experienced greater reductions in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, fasting insulin, and body weight compared to the twins who ate an omnivorous diet.
“These effects can potentially provide a cardiovascular benefit, as we know that high LDL cholesterol, poor blood sugar control, and obesity are all risk factors for heart disease,” Dr. Cheng-Han Chen, board certified interventional cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills, CA, told Healthline.
Cutting out meat and animal products isn’t the only way to improve your cardio-metabolic health. Even modest reductions in meat can promote cardiovascular health, past evidence suggests. “The take-home advice would be for individuals to find the balance that can be maintained long-term; diets that are only followed for short-term provide only short-term benefits,” the study’s senior author, Christopher Gardner, PhD, a professor of medicine at Stanford Medicine and director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, says.
Excerpted from Healthline
