A new study has revealed that following a plant-based diet built on processed foods increases the risk of heart disease, unlike healthy plant-based diets built on whole, fresh foods.
اضافة اعلان
The study, published in The Lancet, explained that the benefits of plant-based diets fade when they rely on ultra-processed foods, which often contain preservatives, fats, and added sugar.
The study was conducted on more than 63,800 middle-aged adults in France over a period of more than 9 years, and the results showed that people who followed an integrated, unprocessed plant-based diet were 44 percent less likely to develop coronary heart disease compared to others.
By contrast, a plant-based diet relying heavily on ultra-processed foods increased the risk of coronary heart disease by 46 percent, and cardiovascular disease in general by 38 percent.
These participants tended to eat supermarket bread, ready-made pasta dishes, canned soups, and pre-made salads with heavy dressings.
The study's lead researcher, Clémentine Prioux from Sorbonne University, said: "Our findings show that reducing the consumption of animal products alone is not enough attention must also be paid to eating unprocessed plant-based foods to maintain heart health."
Researchers pointed out that the quality of food and how it's processed matters more than whether it's plant-based or animal-based. People who ate some animal products while avoiding ultra-processed foods were not more likely to develop heart disease compared to those who followed a healthy plant-based diet built on whole foods.
Experts recommended reducing consumption of ultra-processed foods, whether plant-based or animal-based, and focusing on fresh, whole foods, alongside a healthy lifestyle that includes physical activity and avoiding smoking, in order to reduce the risk of heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases.
