By John Wes­t­er­dahl, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D., C.N.S.

Today sci­en­tific research has estab­lished that a healthy veg­e­tar­ian diet can play a major role in pre­vent­ing dis­ease and achiev­ing opti­mal health and longevity. There are great health ben­e­fits for those who choose to fol­low a veg­e­tar­ian lifestyle.

HEART DISEASE – Most health experts agree that veg­e­tar­i­ans have the advan­tage when it comes to heart dis­ease pre­ven­tion. For the most part, plant-based diets reduce the intake of cholesterol-raising sat­u­rated fat and artery-clogging cho­les­terol. Both sat­u­rated fat and cho­les­terol are two dietary con­stituents strongly linked to increased coro­nary heart dis­ease risk. The less we eat of them, the bet­ter it is for our heart. Eat­ing a diet with lots of fruits, veg­eta­bles, whole grains, and beans can reduce our risk of heart dis­ease in other ways as well. Foods such as beans, oats, and apples are rich sources of sol­u­ble fiber. Sol­u­ble fiber is effec­tive in help­ing to lower blood cholesterol.

There is evi­dence that the B-vitamin, folic acid, helps reduce the risk of heart dis­ease by low­er­ing blood lev­els of a harm­ful homo­cys­teine. Fruits and veg­eta­bles are a major source of folic acid, a heart-healthy vit­a­min, another rea­son why veg­e­tar­ian diets help pre­vent heart disease.

Veg­e­tar­ian diets have lower lev­els of iron. Iron, which is con­cen­trated in red meat, pro­motes cell-destroying free rad­i­cal activ­ity. Free rad­i­cals pro­mote age­ing and also oxi­dize LDL (“bad”) cho­les­terol thereby mak­ing it a more harm­ful sub­stance to the arter­ies which pro­motes ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis. Fruits and veg­eta­bles are rich in vital phy­to­chem­i­cals (plant nutri­ents) that are anti­age­ing antiox­i­dants or scav­engers of harm­ful free rad­i­cals. Veg­e­tar­i­ans have much higher lev­els of plant antiox­i­dants cir­cu­lat­ing in their blood­streams com­pared to meat eaters. The antiox­i­dants found nat­u­rally occur­ring in plant foods such as vit­a­mins C and E, polyphe­nols and flavonoids, may help pre­vent or even reverse free rad­i­cal dam­age that leads to heart disease.

Stud­ies have proven that healthy, very low-fat veg­e­tar­ian diets not only pre­vent heart dis­ease, but also reverse it! Research con­firm­ing this has been con­ducted by Dean Ornish, M.D., of the Pre­ven­tive Med­i­cine Research Insti­tute located in Sausal­ito, Cal­i­for­nia. Dr. Ornish demon­strated that blocked arter­ies can actu­ally become clearer after a year on a healthy veg­e­tar­ian diet alone – with­out the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs! (see web: www.ornish.com)

CANCER – There is strong sci­en­tific evi­dence that a diet rich in fruits and veg­eta­bles pro­tect us against many forms of can­cer. This includes can­cers of the lung, colon, stom­ach, mouth, lar­ynx, esoph­a­gus, blad­der and prostate. Many sci­en­tist believe that nat­ural phy­to­chem­i­cals found in plant foods like carotenoids, vit­a­min C and E, sele­nium, indoles, isoth­io­cyanates, flavonoids, phe­nols, limonene and oth­ers are the pro­tec­tive compounds.

In addi­tion to phy­to­chem­i­cals, plant foods are rich in healthy fiber. Fiber is ben­e­fi­cial in pre­vent­ing colon can­cer. Stud­ies also show that men who are heavy red-meat eaters have increased risk of get­ting colon and prostate can­cers. This may be related not only to ani­mal fats, but car­cino­gens cre­ated when meat is cooked. The high iron (a pro-oxidant) con­tent of red meat may also be a con­tribut­ing fac­tor to increas­ing can­cer risk.

STROKE – More and more sci­en­tific research is estab­lish­ing the fact that a diet rich in fruits and veg­eta­bles is ben­e­fi­cial in reduc­ing the risk of stroke. Stud­ies show eat­ing more fruits and veg­eta­bles are con­tribut­ing pro­tec­tive fac­tors for the arter­ies in the brain.

CONSTIPATION AND DIVERTICULOSIS – Veg­e­tar­i­ans eat sig­nif­i­cantly more dietary fiber, which helps pre­vent these colon prob­lems. Fiber adds bulk to the waste mate­r­ial in the colon, which pro­motes more rapid elim­i­na­tion that helps pre­vent con­sti­pa­tion and also reduces intesti­nal pres­sure pre­vent­ing diver­tic­u­lo­sis. The veg­e­tar­ian diet is the opti­mal diet for the pre­ven­tion, treat­ment and even rever­sal of dis­ease. Physi­cians and Health Sci­ence Researchers have demon­strated this. Well-balanced veg­e­tar­ian diets also make the opti­mal anti-ageing diet. Veg­e­tar­ian and plant-based diet pop­u­la­tion groups, like the Seventh-Day Adven­tists, the peo­ple of Hunza, and the cen­te­nar­i­ans of Oki­nawa, have shown by exam­ple that eat­ing a diet based mostly on plant foods, con­tributes to good health and a long active life. See web­site: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0511/feature1/

John Wes­t­er­dahl, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D., C.N.S., is the Direc­tor of the Bragg Health Foun­da­tion and the Direc­tor of Health Sci­ence for Bragg Live Food Prod­ucts, Inc. Dr. Wes­t­er­dahl is a nutri­tion­ist and reg­is­tered dietit­ian and is rec­og­nized as one of the nation’s lead­ing author­i­ties on veg­e­tar­ian and vegan nutri­tion and diets. He is the for­mer nutri­tion edi­tor for Veg­gie Life mag­a­zine. Dr. Wes­t­er­dahl is an active mem­ber of the Veg­e­tar­ian Nutri­tion Dietetic Prac­tice Group (www.vegetariannutrition.net) of the Amer­i­can Dietetic Asso­ci­a­tion (www.eatright.org) and has received national awards for his con­tri­bu­tions to the field of veg­e­tar­ian nutrition.

Patri­cia Bragg and Dr. John Westerdahl