Vegans have the lowest risk of heart disease and lower cholesterol

Vegans have the lowest risk of heart disease

Vegans and vegetarians have the lowest risk of heart disease of any diet group, and in 30 randomized trials, plant-based diets lowered the LDL cholesterol that clogs arteries. Eating eggs and animal flesh raises the risk.

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The only diets shown to reverse heart disease had no animal flesh

In Dean Ornish’s Lifestyle Heart Trial and Caldwell Esselstyn’s case series, clogged heart arteries started to open back up on diets with no meat and little or no other animal products. No diet that includes meat has a track record like that.

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Vegan and vegetarian diets come with less heart disease than mixed diets

Compared with mixed diets, vegan and vegetarian diets are linked with less ischemic heart disease and better markers of heart and metabolic health.

Fully plant-based diets had the best blood fats, blood pressure, and body fat

When diets were compared, those with no animal foods at all had the best profiles for blood fats, blood pressure, and body fat.

Ornish’s lifestyle program reversed artery disease without cholesterol drugs

Patients on the program took no cholesterol-lowering drugs and still did better than the control group, who were taking them. The narrowing in their arteries went down while the control group’s got worse, and the usual-care group had more cardiac events (risk ratio about 2.5). The program was a very-low-fat vegetarian diet plus exercise, stress management, and group support.

Esselstyn’s plant-based diet halted and reversed heart disease in patients who stuck to it

A whole-food, plant-based diet with no meat and almost no other animal products was linked with halting and reversing coronary artery disease in the patients who stuck to it.

In the 1990 Lifestyle Heart Trial, a low-fat vegetarian diet reversed artery narrowing

The first Lifestyle Heart Trial randomized 48 patients. In the low-fat vegetarian group, average artery narrowing went from 40.0% to 37.8%, while in the usual-care group it went from 42.7% to 46.1%. In the lifestyle group, 82% of patients moved toward regression, without cholesterol drugs.

Esselstyn’s patients who stuck to the diet had no new heart attacks

Eleven patients stuck to a diet under 10% fat for an average of 5.5 years. Of the 25 blockages in their arteries, 11 shrank and 14 stopped growing, average narrowing fell from 53.4% to 46.2%, and nobody had a new heart attack. The five patients who quit and went back to their old diet reported 10 coronary events.

EPIC-Oxford found 22% less heart disease in vegetarians and vegans, and 20% more stroke

EPIC-Oxford followed 48,188 people for 18 years. Vegetarians and vegans had 22% less ischemic heart disease than meat eaters, or 10 fewer cases per 1,000 people over a decade, but 20% more total stroke, mostly hemorrhagic, which works out to 3 more cases per 1,000.

Vegetarians in India had lower cholesterol, triglycerides, and diastolic blood pressure

In the Indian Migration Study, vegetarians had lower total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL cholesterol, and diastolic blood pressure than non-vegetarians. Rates of diabetes and high blood pressure were no different between the groups.

On a plant-based diet with no calorie counting, BROAD trial participants lost about 12 kg

The BROAD trial randomized people with obesity, ischemic heart disease, or type 2 diabetes, and the group on a whole-food plant-based diet didn’t count calories. After 6 months, they had lost about 12 kg, their BMI and cholesterol had improved, and their HbA1c had fallen. Two people with diabetes no longer met the threshold for a diagnosis.

In an animal study, a plant-based diet prevented and reversed hypertensive heart disease

In animals with high blood pressure, a plant-based diet prevented and reversed a form of heart disease. The study supports the mechanism, but it isn’t a human trial.

Adventists who didn’t eat meat were less likely to die of heart disease

Among Adventists, meat-free diets were linked with fewer deaths from ischemic heart disease.

Vegetarian and vegan diets are linked with less heart disease and stroke

In pooled analyses, vegan and vegetarian diets came with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, ischemic heart disease, and stroke.

Eating more eggs is linked with more cardiovascular disease and diabetes

This meta-analysis found that the more eggs people ate, the higher their risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Each extra half egg a day came with 6% more cardiovascular disease and 8% more deaths

Pooling six US cohorts with 29,615 people followed for a median of 17.5 years, researchers found that each extra half egg a day came with 6% more cardiovascular disease and 8% more deaths from any cause. The link with eggs came from the cholesterol in them.

Treating coronary artery disease effectively calls for a plant-based diet, a review argues

The paper argues that effective treatment of coronary artery disease calls for a plant-based diet, since the diets shown to reverse the disease had no meat.

Vegetarian and vegan diets came with 29% less cardiovascular disease in an umbrella review

Pooling meta-analyses of cohort studies and trials, this umbrella review found 29% less cardiovascular disease, 32% fewer deaths from ischemic heart disease, and 33% less ischemic stroke on vegetarian and vegan diets. The authors note that the quality and consistency of the evidence vary between outcomes.

In 30 randomized trials, plant-based diets lowered cholesterol

Across 30 randomized trials, plant-based diets lowered total cholesterol by 0.34 mmol/L, LDL by 0.30 mmol/L, and apolipoprotein B by 12.9 mg/dL compared with omnivorous diets. Triglycerides didn’t change. The effect was about the same regardless of age, continent, trial length, or health status.

Eleven trials found that vegetarian diets lower cholesterol

Across 11 trials, vegetarian diets lowered total, LDL, HDL, and non-HDL cholesterol. Triglycerides didn’t change.

Trials and cohort studies together link vegetarian and vegan diets with lower cholesterol

Pooling observational studies with controlled trials that lasted four weeks or longer, the authors found that vegetarian and vegan diets came with lower total, LDL, and HDL cholesterol than the diets they were compared with.

Across 20 meta-analyses, vegetarian diets came with lower cholesterol and less disease

This umbrella review of twenty meta-analyses covering thirty-four health outcomes found that vegetarian diets came with total cholesterol 0.55 mmol/L lower and LDL 0.47 mmol/L lower than omnivorous diets, along with a lower risk of diabetes, ischemic heart disease, and cancer. It also found worse one-carbon metabolism, which is why people on these diets supplement B12.

Swapping red meat for plant protein lowered cholesterol, a review of 36 trials finds

Across 36 trials, red meat looked no different when all the comparison diets were lumped together. But when the researchers split the trials by what replaced red meat, swapping it for high-quality plant protein lowered total and LDL cholesterol, while swapping it for fish or refined carbohydrates did not.

The American Heart Association on replacing saturated fat with vegetable oil

In a presidential advisory, the American Heart Association reported that trials replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated vegetable oil cut cardiovascular disease by about 30%, close to what statin treatment achieves.

About one extra egg a day came with 6% more deaths and 9% more cardiovascular deaths

In the Finnish ATBC cohort of 27,078 men, researchers counted 22,035 deaths. Each extra 300 mg of dietary cholesterol a day came with a 10% higher risk of dying from any cause and a 13% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, and each extra 50 g of egg a day came with 6% and 9% higher risks. An updated meta-analysis in the same paper is separate from that count: across 3,601,401 people, each extra 50 g of egg a day came with about 4% more cardiovascular disease.

In randomized trials, eating more eggs raised LDL cholesterol

Across the randomized trials, eating more eggs raised LDL cholesterol by about 8 mg/dL and worsened the LDL-to-HDL ratio. The effects were bigger in trials that lasted longer than two months.

Processed meat, red meat, and chicken and turkey flesh all came with more cardiovascular disease

Across six US cohorts with 29,682 adults followed for a median of 19 years, each extra two servings a week came with 7% more cardiovascular disease for processed meat, 3% for unprocessed red meat, and 4% for chicken and turkey flesh, while fish made no difference either way. Only red meat, not chicken and turkey flesh or fish, was linked with dying sooner, and the authors call the increases small. The analysis uses the same six cohorts as the 2019 JAMA egg study, so the two studies are not independent replications.