Better adherence to plant-based dietary patterns, especially those emphasizing healthy plant-based foods, “is beneficial for lowering the risks of major chronic conditions, including T2D, CVD, cancer, as well as premature deaths.”

This is according to a new study published in the peer-reviewed Nutrition Journal, and published online by the US National Library of Medicine. The study was conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“Plant-based dietary patterns are gaining more attention due to their potential in reducing the risk of developing major chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes (T2D), cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer, and mortality, while an up-to-date comprehensive quantitative review is lacking”, states the study’s abstract. “This study aimed to summarize the existing prospective observational evidence on associations between adherence to plant-based dietary patterns and chronic disease outcomes.”
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According to a new study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition olive oil may reduce the risk of dying from dementia.

“Our study reinforces dietary guidelines recommending vegetable oils such as olive oil and suggests that these recommendations not only support heart health but potentially brain health, as well”, says Anne-Julie Tessier, RD, PhD, postdoctoral fellow, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Opting for olive oil, a natural product, instead of fats such as margarine and commercial mayonnaise is a safe choice and may reduce the risk of fatal dementia.”

Tessier presented the findings at NUTRITION 2023, the flagship annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition which is held in Boston Between July 22 and July 25.
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According to new research published by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, a plant-based diet may help men with prostate cancer improve their condition and prevent cancer recurrence.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The forthcoming study, presented to a cancer-research symposium in February 2023, focuses on the diets of over 2,000 men with prostate cancer, also known as PC. Vivian Liu, a leading research coordinator at the University of California – San Francisco, and several other researchers report that a plant-based diet may be among the recommendations that doctors make to patients with PC.

The men involved with the study responded to questionnaires about their diets and received no prompting from the researchers as to what they should or should not consume; they “ate what they wanted to,” says Liu in an interview with The Washington Post (Cimons, 2023). Though this study does not focus on preventing PC, it presents compelling observational evidence that a plant-based diet can both slow the progression of PC and stop it from recurring in the bodies of survivors.
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