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Wisdom Wednesdays: The Pros and Cons of Plant-Based Eating · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. Today,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about the pros and cons of
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: having plant based diets. Now I have kind of skirted
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: around the issue a little bit before. I have talked
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: about some studies that have been published around plant based
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: diets and highlighting some of the in inadequacies I should
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: say in these studies just because they were pretty poorly
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  Speaker 1: designed and they got a lot of media attention. But
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  Speaker 1: I haven't actually given my thoughts comprehensively, and some people
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: have accused me of being anti vegan, anti plant biaist.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not at all. I'm just about having good research.
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  Speaker 1: So actually, what I thought I would do is look
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: into this in a bit of detail. And I have
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  Speaker 1: talked many occasions about the limitations of observational research and
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  Speaker 1: how it's really hard to draw conclusions of that. But
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  Speaker 1: I have also talked about then when we have systematic reviews,
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  Speaker 1: which poos all the data from lots of different studies,
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  Speaker 1: that we start to get a bit stronger evidence. So
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  Speaker 1: I want to talk about a couple of systematic reviews,
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  Speaker 1: one looking at the impact of either meatators, vegetarians or
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  Speaker 1: vegans on certain cardiovascular outcomes, particularly the nutrient intakes, because
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  Speaker 1: that's really really important, is just looking at those nutrients
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  Speaker 1: and any deficiencies. And then there's another systematic review that
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  Speaker 1: talked about the mental health outcome. Now there have been
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  Speaker 1: other studies and I just want to reference them nigh.
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  Speaker 1: So there's lots of bias in nutritional research. I think
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  Speaker 1: I've talked about that before. I think there's probably more
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  Speaker 1: bias in nutritional research than most other branches of science.
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  Speaker 1: And I have highlighted previously a number of studies that
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  Speaker 1: have come out and have been particularly critical of these
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  Speaker 1: ones from Harvard and a guy called Walter Willard who's
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  Speaker 1: a very senior researcher, and Harvard Nutritional department is great,
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  Speaker 1: but they've produced a number of what I call shit
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  Speaker 1: house studies lately. They did this design, which in concept
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  Speaker 1: was a great design, where they took a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: twins and had half of them eating a plant piut
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  Speaker 1: diet or vegan diet and then the other half on
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  Speaker 1: a diet that included meat, and then they compared cardiovascular outcomes.
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  Speaker 1: They published a paper on that, and then they compared
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  Speaker 1: reductions in biological leads and they published a paper on that.
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  Speaker 1: But the massive issue with this gloring issues one. And
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  Speaker 1: when they did the study on cardiovascar issues, they measured
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  Speaker 1: lipids and things like that, so they measured saturated fat
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  Speaker 1: and stuff like that, but they didn't do I think
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  Speaker 1: was fasting glue, coaster, tragleistritz one or the other or
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  Speaker 1: maybe both, which have a big impact, and they didn't
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  Speaker 1: include them. And they we know tend to be a
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  Speaker 1: little bit higher in vegetarian and vegan diets. But the
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  Speaker 1: main issue with these ones was that the vegans had
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  Speaker 1: two hundred calories a day less and they lost more weight,
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  Speaker 1: and that could mix. Basically, you can't draw any conclusions
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  Speaker 1: because when you have two groups of people, one are
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  Speaker 1: having two hundred calories a day less over eight weeks
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  Speaker 1: and they're losing more weight, you cannot draw any inferences
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  Speaker 1: at all. And the reason I highlighted these things is
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  Speaker 1: because it's Harvard University and they push it out there.
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  Speaker 1: They were all over the newspapers, and that's why I
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  Speaker 1: highlighted these as really poor studies. And the other issue
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  Speaker 1: that they didn't really mention is that the vegans lost
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  Speaker 1: their shitload of muscle, which as you know, is one
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  Speaker 1: of my major concerns, particularly as we euching. But anyway,
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  Speaker 1: let's get back to these good studies that were published.
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  Speaker 1: So one of them was published in the journal Nutrients,
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  Speaker 1: and it was a systematic review and the title was
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  Speaker 1: Nutrient Intake and Status in adults consuming plant beat stats
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  Speaker 1: compared to meat eaters, A systematic review. Now that just
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  Speaker 1: leads me into something that this whole concept of plant
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  Speaker 1: beest has confused me a little bit because it is
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  Speaker 1: interchangeably used by people who are vegans, people who are vegetarians,
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  Speaker 1: but also some people who eat fish and some people
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  Speaker 1: who eat a little bit of meat. So like, what
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  Speaker 1: is the criteria for plant beast? This is the thing
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  Speaker 1: that kind of concerns me when we're looking at the
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  Speaker 1: literature is that there's no defined criteria because my diet
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  Speaker 1: from some stand points is actually plant best because I
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  Speaker 1: probably eat more plants in terms of volume, in fact,
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  Speaker 1: I would than meat. If we're talking about calories, would
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  Speaker 1: I be plantius I'm not really sure. I'd have to
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  Speaker 1: do an analysis. But if you're talking about the from
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  Speaker 1: a purest perspective, then I'm not plant beast if plant
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  Speaker 1: be means vegetarian or vegan. So that's a little bit
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  Speaker 1: that kind of confused me to start with. But anyway,
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  Speaker 1: this study compared the three groups vegans, vegetarians, and people
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  Speaker 1: who at meat, and they looked at nutrient intake. So
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  Speaker 1: I'm just going to drive straight to the conclusions. Actually
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  Speaker 1: really good paper in that they measured lots of different
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  Speaker 1: nutrients and compared them in the three different groups and
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  Speaker 1: what they find. So I'll just go from the table,
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  Speaker 1: reading it out right from from top to bottom. And
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  Speaker 1: the nutrients were it was fevorable those who had a
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  Speaker 1: vegan diet have higher amounts of fiber and puffers, polyon
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  Speaker 1: saturated fatty acids alphalinilaic acid, and the vitamins vitamins B one,
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  Speaker 1: B six, vitamin C, vitamin E, foliate, and magnesium. Vegetarians
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  Speaker 1: tended to have high amounts of poofas alphalinilaic acid, vitamin C,
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  Speaker 1: folio and magnesium, and then the meat eaters tended to
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  Speaker 1: have higher amounts of protein niasin, vitamin B twelve and zinc.
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  Speaker 1: The ones were there was in terms of nutrients at
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  Speaker 1: risk of inadequacy or deficiency. The vegans, it was basically
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  Speaker 1: EPA and DHA and two of the essential fatty acids,
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  Speaker 1: vitamin B, twelve, vitamin D, calcium, iodine, zinc, and just
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  Speaker 1: in women, iron as well. The vegetarians had low amounts
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  Speaker 1: or suboptimal amounts of fiber, which is a surprising one,
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  Speaker 1: but also EPA, DHA, vitamins B, twelve, D, calcium, iodine, zinc,
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  Speaker 1: iron in women, but also vitamin E, so very similar
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  Speaker 1: to the vegans or other than vegetarians had less fiber,
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  Speaker 1: which I find surprising. And also the other difference was
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  Speaker 1: vitamin E intakes. And then the metators had suboptimal amounts
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  Speaker 1: of fiber, polyon saturated fatty acids alphaalinellaic acid only in men,
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  Speaker 1: and then vitamin's D E, foliate, calcium, and magnesium. So
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  Speaker 1: across the board there were suboptimal levels of vitamin D
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  Speaker 1: and calcium across all three groups, but deficiencies were particular
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  Speaker 1: to that. And I will actually post a link to
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  Speaker 1: the research paper. So this is a good paper, it's
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  Speaker 1: a systematic review, and it's actually looking at nutrient intakes. Now,
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  Speaker 1: we do need to be aware that part of the
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  Speaker 1: problems with these studies, with these observational studies, is they're
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  Speaker 1: asking people what they eat through food frequency questionnaers and
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  Speaker 1: they are inherently oh well, there's inherent problems with those
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  Speaker 1: sorts of things. But they do look at one hundred
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  Speaker 1: and forty one studies from across the world, mostly from Europe,
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  Speaker 1: southdc IS, and North America. So that's a pretty good indicator,
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  Speaker 1: or it's at least the best that we have currently
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  Speaker 1: about nutrient status in those different groups. So it didn't
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  Speaker 1: look about outcomes, but it did look about nutrient status.
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  Speaker 1: Now what we know in terms of outcomes is that
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  Speaker 1: there's another systematic review that looked at basically cardiovascular risk
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  Speaker 1: factors for the different groups. And now there's a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of a flaw in this study because it was
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  Speaker 1: basically looking at vegetarianism versus meat eaters. But they actually
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  Speaker 1: am lumped in fish eaters with vegetarians, which I find
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  Speaker 1: really weird. It's like, why not just have plant beast
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  Speaker 1: or vegetarians. But what they find after they adjusted for
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  Speaker 1: lifestyle confounders, which is really important, is that both fish
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  Speaker 1: eaters and vegetarians a thirteen percent lower rate of ischemic
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  Speaker 1: heart disease than meat eaters. Right, But what happened was
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  Speaker 1: that the vegetarians, not the fish eaters, but just the
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  Speaker 1: vegetarians had a twenty percent higher rate of total stroke,
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  Speaker 1: right than meat eaters. Now, what are these equivalent? Because
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  Speaker 1: we always hear that and we think, hey, Jesus, twenty
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  Speaker 1: percent higher risk, that's really significant. So if we take
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  Speaker 1: the thirteen percent reduce risk of a schemic heart disease
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  Speaker 1: in the vegetarians and the fish eaters compared to the
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  Speaker 1: meat eaters, that actually is equivalent to ten fewer cases
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  Speaker 1: of heart disease per thousand people over a ten year period. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So this is the difference between absolute and relative risk.
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  Speaker 1: So the absolute risk reduction was thirteen percent. And we've
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  Speaker 1: heard before all this stuff about red meat increase your
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  Speaker 1: risk by eighteen percent. But when you look at what
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  Speaker 1: does that mean for people on the street, It means
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  Speaker 1: that if people were to stop eating meat and transition
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  Speaker 1: to either vegetarian diet or vegetarian plus fish pescatarian, one
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  Speaker 1: person fewer per thousand per year would have heart disease.
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  Speaker 1: And then when it comes to the other way, that
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  Speaker 1: twenty percent higher risk of stroke in the vegetarians, what
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  Speaker 1: that translates as is basically three people having less having
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  Speaker 1: a stroke per thousand people over eighteen year period. So
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  Speaker 1: the real world impact of these things are absolutely minuscule
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  Speaker 1: whenever you look at it in detail. So let me know,
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  Speaker 1: I talk about looking at things from another side, which
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  Speaker 1: is looking at mental health risks. So this is a
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  Speaker 1: study and the taitleist a meta analysis is well. So
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  Speaker 1: again lots of data combined. They identified twelve hundred and
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  Speaker 1: forty nine publications and basically got rid of the vast
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  Speaker 1: majority of them because they were really not well designed.
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  Speaker 1: So there was thirteen included, but it had seventeen eight
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  Speaker 1: hundred and nine individuals, so what reasonable amount. And then
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  Speaker 1: what they did was they looked at the associations between
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  Speaker 1: their diet and continuous to spread depression scores, stress well being,
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  Speaker 1: or cognitive imperment. And what they found is that the
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  Speaker 1: vegans and vegetarians were at an increased risk for depression.
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  Speaker 1: So their ODDS ratio was two point one four. That
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  Speaker 1: meant they were one hundred and forty or sorry, one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fourteen percent more likely to suffer depression than
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  Speaker 1: meat eaters. But they also had lower anxiety scores, so
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  Speaker 1: they were about fifteen percent and less likely to have anxiety.
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  Speaker 1: So unfortunately they didn't translate that into the reductions or
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  Speaker 1: increases in incidents over the years, but the increased risk
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  Speaker 1: of depression is pretty significant one hundred and fourteen percent
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  Speaker 1: increased risk of depression. The anxiety at fifteen percent lower
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  Speaker 1: is really unlikely to have clinical relevance. So that then
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  Speaker 1: leads us to in terms of conclusions, what I would
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  Speaker 1: conclude from this is it really doesn't matter very much
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  Speaker 1: at all in terms of cardiovascular risk. It does matter
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  Speaker 1: in terms of nutrients status, and potentially in terms of
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  Speaker 1: depression if you are a vegetarian or a vegan, and
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  Speaker 1: then that brings us into why right, and the other
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  Speaker 1: thing I want to talk about here are kids. So
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  Speaker 1: I always say I don't mind what people what diet
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  Speaker 1: they prefer, and my job is to kind of support people.
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  Speaker 1: So what we know if you are a meat teater
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  Speaker 1: is as I said earlier on, and there are a
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  Speaker 1: number of nutrients in meat eaters that are significantly lower.
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  Speaker 1: So you definitely need to increase your amounts of vitamin
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  Speaker 1: D well Probably the best way to do that is
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  Speaker 1: getting out into some sunshine, but also for a media
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  Speaker 1: that you need to probably eat more fiber on average
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  Speaker 1: and more pollen and saturated fatty acids, a bit more
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  Speaker 1: alphalinelaic acid, a bit more foliate, bit more calcium, a
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  Speaker 1: bit more magnesium. If you're a vegetarian or a vegan, definitely,
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  Speaker 1: it is the essential fatty acids that are particularly important
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  Speaker 1: for the brain. So the EPA, the DHA, and vitamin
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  Speaker 1: B twelve, as well as iodine and iron, they're the
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  Speaker 1: ones that are really important to a lesser extent zinc.
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  Speaker 1: So I think what's pretty clear is that everybody needs
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  Speaker 1: to supplement. But now let's talk about kids, because my
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  Speaker 1: real concern kids are not small adults, right. People think
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  Speaker 1: that they're just small adults, but you've got to think
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  Speaker 1: about this. Kids are growing rapidly and their brands particularly
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  Speaker 1: are growing very very rapidly, and they have a greater
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  Speaker 1: need per kilogram of body weight for nutrients so that
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  Speaker 1: they can develop properly. Now, some of the issues, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm pretty strong on this, is that I'm not a
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  Speaker 1: big fan of kids being brought up vegetarian and particularly vegan.
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  Speaker 1: I get that people have they have belief systems, and
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  Speaker 1: it's an ethical issue and I get it. So if
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  Speaker 1: you do, if it is really really strong from an
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  Speaker 1: ethical perspective, I think particularly for kids. There has to
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  Speaker 1: be has to be, has to be, has to be
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  Speaker 1: supplementation things that we really have to supplement our deity,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: which is the faty acid. It is hugely important for
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Brian development and bit them in B twelve. Right, they
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  Speaker 1: are the two that absolutely one hundred percent have to
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: be supplemented. But I would also say calcium iron iodine
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  Speaker 1: because it's important for Brian development. I mean, we just
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: need to look at goister with iodine deficiency and it's
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: a pretty horrendous condition where the Brian just and the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: central nervous system doesn't develop properly. So those are nutrients
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  Speaker 1: that absolutely have to be supplemented, and there is some
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: data around this. Now again they are not that common,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: but the impact is absolutely catastrophic. I'm going to send
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  Speaker 1: a link to a study that showed a Brian scan
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  Speaker 1: of a twelve month old baby boy that was born
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  Speaker 1: from a vegan mother exclusively breastfed and you know low EPA,
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  Speaker 1: DSA and other and particularly vitamin B twelve and coaling
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and this bran in was massively retarded in terms of development.
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  Speaker 1: But then they actually because they founded got the baby
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: boy early, they supplemented with those nutrients, the EPA, the
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: DJ and the B twelve. Unfortunately, the child responded well
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: to the treatment with intramuscular B twelve and those other nutrients,
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  Speaker 1: and so things to really look out for. And by
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the way, there are a number of KIOS studies. There's
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: now been more than forty different KIOS studies that have
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: been published over the years, going back for a forty
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: year period where young kids who have been on a
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: vegan diet have actually been hospitalized because of severe nutrient
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: deficiencies and particularly vitamin B twelve. So that is something
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: to really be aware of for anybody who's a vegetarian
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: or vegan, and particularly who's thinking about becoming pregnant, is
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: that you have to supplement with those essential fatty acids,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: which you can actually get from plant sources, but they
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: are just need to be aware that conversion in the
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: body is pretty poor, so you need eed a bucketload
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: of those from supplements, and you absolutely absolutely have to
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: supplement with vitamin B twelve. So the last thing I
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: wanted to talk about in this So my conclusion overall
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  Speaker 1: is it doesn't particularly make that much difference to health
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: outcomes if you are an adult, but there's certainly a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: significant impact on health outcomes if you're a kid, So
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: just again reiterating the importance of supplementing. And then the
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: last thing that I wanted to talk about was an
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: interesting study that has just come across my dead the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: one that I just read that actually showed that plant
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: piest diets are thirty four to forty five percent more
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: expensive when trying to meet the same nutritional needs as
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: diets with meats in them. So you know, the question
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: is that are plant piest diets just something for wealthy
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: people and certainly probably not appropriate for third world countries
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: where they get a lot of their nutrients from meat
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: because it is much more nutrient dense, particularly if it
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: is grass fed. So that's just one other thing to
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: take into consideration whenever you are considering your diet. And
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: like I always said, if it's about ethical issues, then
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: knock yourself out, but make sure you're supplement But the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: meat eaters we should be supplementing as well. So hopefully
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: that gives you a little bit of an insight onto
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: the pros and cons of vegetarian, vegan slash plant based
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: diets and diets that contain meat. That's it. For this
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: time folks. Catch up next time. H