Shifting to Plant-Based Foods Reduces Risk of All-Cause Mortality

A large review of 37 studies, published in BMC Medicine, has identified how a shift from animal-based foods – including red and processed meat, eggs, dairy, poultry and butter – to plant-based foods – such as nuts, legumes, whole grains and olive oil – is associated with significant improvements in cardiometabolic health and reductions in all-cause mortality.

It’s already well-established that plant-based diets are linked with health benefits – such as significantly reduced risk of heart disease, cancer, and type two diabetes – but this meta-analysis looked even closer at the effects of substituting specific animal foods with plant foods. For instance, they found that substituting red and processed meat with nuts, legumes and whole grains significantly reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and all-cause mortality, while replacing eggs with nuts was linked with lower incidence of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality.

Similarly, replacing butter with olive oil lowered the incidence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and all-cause mortality, and substituting poultry with whole grains was linked with lower incidence of diabetes. The findings led the authors to conclude that “a change in dietary habits towards an increment of plant-based products appears to be important for cardiometabolic health”.

Neuenschwander, M., Stadelmaier, J., Eble, J., Grummich, K., Szczerba, E., Kiesswetter, E., Schlesinger, S., & Schwingshackl, L. (2023). Substitution of animal-based with plant-based foods on cardiometabolic health and all-cause mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies. BMC medicine, 21(1), 404. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-023-03093-1

Oussalah, A., Levy, J., Berthezène, C., Alpers, D. H., & Guéant, J. L. (2020). Health outcomes associated with vegetarian diets: An umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Clinical nutrition (Edinburgh, Scotland), 39(11), 3283–3307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2020.02.037