Why Do Vegetarians Live Longer?

by Kathy Freston  Health and Wellness Activist, Author    www.huffingtonpost.com

 

 

Nearly a decade of extra life — that’s what you get when you move away from eating animal foods and toward a plant-based diet. This is really exciting science for anyone seeking healthy longevity (and who isn’t?)!

According to a recent report on the largest study of vegetarians and vegans to date, those eating plant-based diets appear to have a significantly longer life expectancy. Vegetarians live on average almost eight years longer than the general population, which is similar to the gap between smokers and nonsmokers. This is not surprising, given the reasons most of us are dying. In an online video, “Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death,” Michael Greger, M.D. explores the role a healthy diet can play in preventing, treating, and even reversing the top 15 killers in the United States. Let’s take a closer look at what the good doctor has pulled together…

Heart disease is our leading cause of death. The 35-year follow-up of the Harvard Nurses Health Study was recently published, now the most definitive long-term study on older women’s health. Dietary cholesterol intake — only found in animal foods — was associated with living a significantly shorter life and fiber intake — only found in plant foods — was associated with living a significantly longer life. Consuming the amount of cholesterol found in just a single egg a day may cut a woman’s life short as much as smoking five cigarettes daily for 15 years, whereas eating a daily cup of oatmeal’s worth of fiber appears to extend a woman’s life as much as four hours of jogging a week. (But there’s no reason we can’t do both!)

What if your cholesterol’s normal, though? I hear that a lot. But here’s the thing: having a “normal” cholesterol in a society where it’s “normal” to drop dead of a heart attack is not necessarily a good thing. According to the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Cardiology, “For the build-up of plaque in our arteries to cease, it appears that the serum total cholesterol needs to be lowered to the 150 area. In other words the serum total cholesterol must be lowered to that of the average pure vegetarian.”

More than 20 years ago, Dr. Dean Ornish showed that heart disease could not just be stopped but actually reversed with a vegan diet, arteries opened up without drugs or surgery. Since this lifestyle cure was discovered, hundreds of thousands have died unnecessary deaths. What more does one have to know about a diet that reverses our deadliest disease?

Cancer is killer number two. Ah, the dreaded “C” word — but look at this hopeful science. According to the largest forward-looking study on diet and cancer so far performed, “the incidence of all cancers combined is lower among vegetarians.” The link between meat and cancer is such that even a paper published in the journal Meat Science recently asked, “Should we become vegetarians, or can we make meat safer?” There are a bunch of additives under investigation to suppress the toxic effects the blood-based “heme” iron, for example, which could provide what they called an “acceptable” way to prevent cancer. Why not just reduce meat consumption? The meat science researchers noted that if such public health guidance were adhered to, “Cancer incidence may be reduced, but farmers and [the] meat industry would suffer important economical problems…” Hmmm, so Big Ag chooses profit over health; what a surprise.

After Dr. Ornish’s team showed that the bloodstreams of men eating vegan for a year had nearly eight times the cancer-stopping power, a series of elegant experiments showed that women could boost their defenses against breast cancer after just two weeks on a plant-based diet. See the before and after here (nutritionfacts.org/video). If you or anyone you know has ever had a cancer scare, this research will make your heart soar. Because there is real, true hope — something you can do to stave off “the big C.”

So, the top three leading causes of death used to be heart disease, cancer, then stroke, but the latest CDC stats place COPD third — lung diseases such as emphysema. Surprisingly, COPD can be prevented with the help of a plant-based diet, and can even be treated with plants. Of course, the tobacco industry viewed these landmark findings a little differently. Instead of adding plants to one’s diet to prevent emphysema, wouldn’t it be simpler to just add them to the cigarettes? Hence the study “Addition of Açaí [Berries] to Cigarettes Has a Protective Effect Against Emphysema in [Smoking] Mice.” Seriously.

The meat industry tried the same tack. Putting fruit extracts in burgers was not without its glitches, though. The blackberries “literally dyed burger patties with a distinct purplish color,” and though it was possible to improve the nutritional profile of frankfurters with powdered grape seeds, there were complaints that the grape seed “particles became visible” in the final product. And if there’s one thing we know about hot dog eaters, it’s that they’re picky about what goes in their food!

Onward to strokes: The key to preventing strokes may be to eat potassium-rich foods. Though Chiquita may have had a good PR firm, bananas don’t even make the top 50 sources. The leading whole food sources include dark green leafy vegetables, beans, and dates. We eat so few plants that 98 percent of Americans don’t even reach the recommended minimum daily intake of potassium. And if you look at killer number five — accidents — bananas (and their peels) could be downright dangerous!

Alzheimer’s disease is now our sixth leading killer. We’ve known for nearly 20 years now that those who eat meat — including chicken and fish — appear three times more likely to become demented compared to long-term vegetarians. Exciting new research suggests one can treat Alzheimer’s using natural plant products such as the spice saffron, which beat out placebo and worked as well as a leading Alzheimer’s drug.

Diabetes is next on the kick-the-bucket list. Plant-based diets help prevent, treat, and even reverse Type 2 diabetes. Since vegans are, on average, about 30 pounds skinnier than meat-eaters, this comes as no surprise; but researchers found that vegans appear to have just a fraction of the diabetes risk, even after controlling for their slimmer figures.

Kidney failure, our eighth leading cause of death, may also be prevented and treated with a plant-based diet. The three dietary risk factors Harvard researchers found for declining kidney function were animal protein, animal fat, and cholesterol, all of which are only found in animal products.

Leading killer number nine is respiratory infections. With flu shot season upon us, it’s good to know that fruit and vegetable consumption can significantly boost one’s protective immune response to vaccination. Check out the short video “Kale and the Immune System,” and you’ll see there’s not much kale can’t do.

Suicide is number 10. Oh yes, vegan food even has something good to offer on this one! Cross-sectional studies have shown that the moods of those on plant-based diets tend to be superior, but taken in just a snapshot in time one can’t tease out cause-and-effect. Maybe happier people end up eating healthier and not the other way around. But this year an interventional trial was published in which all meat, poultry, fish, and eggs were removed from people’s diets and a significant improvement in mood scores was found after just two weeks. It can take drugs like Prozac a month or more to take effect. So you may be able to get happier faster by cutting out animal foods than by using drugs.

Drugs can help with the other conditions as well, but instead of taking one drug for cholesterol every day for the rest of your life, maybe a few for high blood pressure or diabetes, the same diet appears to work across the board without the risk of drug side-effects. One study found that prescription medications kill an estimated 106,000 Americans every year. That’s not from errors or overdose, but from adverse drug reactions, arguably making doctors the sixth leading cause of death.

Based on a study of 15,000 American vegetarians, those that eat meat have about twice the odds of being on antacids, aspirin, blood pressure medications, insulin, laxatives, painkillers, sleeping pills, and tranquilizers. So plant-based diets are great for those that don’t like taking drugs, paying for drugs, or risking adverse side effects.

Imagine if, like President Clinton, our nation embraced a plant-based diet. Imagine if we just significantly cut back on animal products. There is one country that tried. After World War II, Finland joined us in packing on the meat, eggs, and dairy. By the 1970s, the mortality rate from heart disease of Finnish men was the highest in the world, and so they initiated a country-wide program to decrease their saturated fat intake. Farmers were encouraged to switch from dairies to berries. Towns were pitted against each other in friendly cholesterol-lowering competitions. Their efforts resulted in an 80 percent drop in cardiac mortality across the entire country.

Conflicts of interest on the U.S. dietary guidelines committee may have prevented similar action from our own government, but with our health-care crisis deepening, our obesity epidemic widening, and the health of our nation’s children in decline, we may need to take it upon ourselves, families, and communities to embrace Food Day ideals of healthy, affordable, sustainable foods by moving towards a more plant-centered diet. If we do, we may be afforded added years to enjoy the harvest.

The Truth behind Your Food

By  Hui-Ming Toh, Auckland, New Zealand (Originally in English) The author is a 17-year-old student in her final year of secondary school. The article was an internal assessment for which she was awarded the top grade of excellence. It is available in 30 languages…

Would you ever open your fridge, pull out twenty plates of pasta and chuck them into the bin, and then, eat only one plate of food? How about leveling fifty-five square feet of rainforest for one lunch or dumping two-thousand-five-hundred gallons of water down the drain? Of course you wouldn’t. However, just eating half a kilo of meat will cause this. Eating meat will cause inefficient use and destruction to our resources and environment, cause immense animal suffering, and have detrimental effects on our health. So, if roasting a dog to complement your mashed potato disturbs you, then why roast any other gentle animal?

Waste Lagoon: Circle Four Farms, a Utah-based pork producer, hosts a three-million gallon waste lagoon. When lagoons like this spill into rivers and lakes as happened in North Carolina in 1995, the result can be environmentally catastrophic.

A UN report has identified that “cows not cars, are the top threat to our environment.” It gives evidence that the world’s rapidly growing herds of cattle is the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. Farmed animals produce one-hundred-and-thirty times more excrement than the entire human population of the United States and this concentrated slop ends up polluting water, destroying top soil and contaminating our air. Furthermore, their bodily gas and manure emit more than one third of methane, which warms the world twenty times faster than carbon dioxide. Meat-eaters are responsible for the production of one hundred percent of these wastes which is about eighty-six-thousand pounds per second. But, by giving up animal products, you will be responsible for none of these.

Moreover, our taste for meat is taking a toll on our supply of non-renewable resources. A staggering two-thousand-five-hundred gallons of water is needed for the production of each pound of beef, but, in contrast, it takes only twenty-nine gallons to produce a pound of tomatoes and a hundred-and-thirty-nine gallons for a pound of whole wheat bread. Half the water, eighty percent of agricultural land in the United States, almost all the soy bean harvest and over half of the world’s grain is used to raise animals for food. While we are doing this, one billion people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition and twenty-four-thousand children die every day alongside fields of grain destined for the West’s livestock. However, world starvation would be eliminated if our scarce resources were utilized efficiently by converting land to raising crops for feeding people.

Somali Famine Victims: Somalian famine victims line up for food handouts. Producing a pound of beef requires 4.8 pounds of grain, and critics of our modern agricultural system say that the spread of meat-based diets aggravates world hunger.

 

Are you aware that one-hundred-and-thirty million animals are murdered annually in New Zealand? Most animals are raised on factory farms, the system which strives to maximize output at minimum costs. As a result, the animals suffer immense pain mentally and physically every second of their lives. They are crammed into filthy windowless confinement systems and will never raise their families, rummage in the soil or do anything that is natural to them. They won’t even feel the sun on their backs or breathe fresh air until the day they are loaded onto trucks, destined for slaughter. Over ninety million animals in New Zealand suffer these conditions and many remain conscious as their throats are cut, then, left to bleed to death.

Another cruel practice farmers often carry out is the deprivation of food from birds for fourteen days in order to shock their bodies into laying more eggs for human consumption. And, because male chicks are useless in the meat industry, each year a hundred million of them are ground up alive or tossed into bags to suffocate. What’s more, at the slaughter house, the chickens throats are cut, and they are immersed in scalding hot water to remove their feathers while many are still alive.

Even nowadays, to mark cows for identification, ranchers push hot fire irons into their flesh as they bellow in pain. Consequently, third degree burns occur and male calves’ testicles are ripped from their scrotums all without pain relief. To add to their suffering, the land which cattle graze on has air saturated with chemicals and these fumes cause chronic respiratory problems, therefore making breathing painful.

Cows used for their milk are repeatedly impregnated and their babies taken away so that humans can drink the milk intended for the calves. They are hooked up to machines several times daily and using genetic manipulation, powerful hormones, and intensive milking, they are forced to produce ten times more milk as they naturally would. This contributes to the immensely painful inflammation of their udder which up to fifty percent of dairy cows suffer from.

Animals on today’s factory farms have no legal protection from cruelty that would be illegal if it were inflicted on household pets: neglect, mutilation, genetic manipulation, and drug programs that cause chronic pain and crippling and, violent slaughter. Robert Louis Stevenson, a novelist and poet said, “We consume the carcasses of creatures of like appetites, passions and organs with our own.” Yet, farmed animals are no less intelligent or capable of feeling pain than are the dogs and cats we cherish as companions.

This is demonstrated by the frequent reports of cows leaping over a six-foot fence to escape a slaughterhouse, walking seven miles to be reunited with a calf and swimming across a river to freedom. Pigs, too, are insightful animals as discovered by Dr. Donald Broom, scientific advisor to the British government – “[Pigs] have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly three-year-olds.”

The most important step you can take to save our planet and diminish both human and animal suffering is to go vegetarian. A meat free diet rich in complex carbohydrates, protein, fiber, omega-three, vitamins and minerals provides optimal nutrition, forming the foundation for dietary habits that support a lifetime of good health. Compelling evidence can be found in the book “The China Study” by Professor T. Colin Campbell which says, “in the next ten years, one of the things you’re bound to hear is that animal protein is one of the most toxic nutrients of all…risk for disease goes up dramatically when even a little animal protein is added to the diet.” Studies have shown that vegetarian kids have higher IQs than their classmates and vegetarians live, on average, six to ten years longer than meat-eaters. In addition to this, they are fifty percent less likely to develop heart disease and cancer, plus, meat eaters are nine times more likely to be obese than vegans are. Vegetarian foods provide us with all the nutrients we need, minus the saturated fat, cholesterol, and contaminants.

Conversely, many argue that plants are alive too. This is true, but plants have only ten percent consciousness while animals have consciousness equivalent to humans. Since plants cannot locomote, the sensation of experiencing pain would be superfluous. Thus, plants differ completely physiologically from mammals. If you cut a branch or leaves off a tree, it will flourish and grow more. On the other hand, animals do not desire regular pruning. Can you cut off a leg from a cow and expect it to grow four more legs?

Raising animals for food is wreaking havoc on Earth. The environment, resources and our health are deteriorating and although most of us do not actively condone killing, humans have developed the habit, supported by society, of eating meat without any real awareness of what is being done to the animals we eat. It is said that, “one visit to a slaughterhouse will make you a vegetarian for life. Because it is us who created their screams of pain and fear.” So, if you ever decide to roast a gentle animal again…remember you are consuming the flesh of one equivalent to your much loved pets. But, the only difference is that this animal was tortured.

There are many shocking pictures on the following website:

http://www.viva.org.uk/photogallery/galleryindex.htm