Healthy plant-based diet may reduce premature death risk in chronic illness, study reveals

A new research suggests that people with cardiometabolic disorders, such as obesity, diabetes, or heart disease, who adopt a healthy plant-based diet may lower the risk of premature death. These disorders affect the health of a person’s cardiovascular system and how the body processes food. They are the result of several genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors.

Closer adherence to healthful diets was associated with a 17–24% lower risk of death from any cause, cardiovascular disease, or cancer. Meanwhile, people with a closer adherence to unhealthful plant-based diets had a 28–36% higher risk of death from any cause, cardiovascular disease, or cancer. 

The researchers used a healthful plant-based diet index to analyze the diets of almost 78,000 people with cardiometabolic disorders in the UK, the US, and China. They assigned higher scores to people who reported a diet higher in healthy plant-based foods such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, tea, and coffee. Unhealthful diets included those higher in refined grains, potatoes, sugar-sweetened beverages, and animal-based foods.

“These findings may help individuals with cardiometabolic disorders make healthier lifestyle choices,” says the study’s lead author, Zhangling Chen, MD, Ph.D., of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University in Changsha, China.

“More intake of healthy plant-based foods, less intake of unhealthy plant-based foods, and less intake of animal-based foods are all important.”

Cardiometabolic health

The study’s authors claim it is the first to focus on the benefits of these diets in people with cardiometabolic health issues, which increase the risk of premature death. They caution that the prevalence of these disorders is rising worldwide. 

The researchers note that while medications may help manage cardiometabolic disorders, diet and other lifestyle factors are key to preventing the progression to severe forms of heart disease or cancer not associated with these disorders. 

The researchers classified healthy diets as higher in plant-based foods such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, tea, and coffee.“It is important to identify and develop cost-effective strategies to promote health among individuals with cardiometabolic disorders,” highlights Chen.

The research will be presented at next week’s American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session (March 28–30). This conference brings together cardiologists and cardiovascular specialists worldwide to share treatment and prevention discoveries.

Pooled datasets

The researchers analyzed data from participants in three large prospective studies: 55,000 adults from the UK Biobank (between 2006 and 2022), 18,000 adults from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Study (1999–2018), and 4,500 adults from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Study (2006–2018). 

The team scored the healthiness of participants’ diets based on their baseline responses to 24-hour recall interviews or dietary questionnaires. 

In their analysis, the researchers adjusted for several confounding factors, saying that results were consistent across subgroups based on age, race, sex, smoking, alcohol intake, body mass index, and physical activity. 

In addition, the team notes that the results were consistent in people with different types of cardiometabolic disorders. They were also consistent in the three national cohorts when the researchers analyzed these separately, even though the UK and US were significantly younger (average age of 57 and 59, respectively) than the Chinese group (84 years). 

Closer adherence to healthy plant-based diets was associated with a 17–24% lower risk of death.Plant-based benefits

After a separate study on the US dataset, not focusing on people with cardiometabolic disorders, the team also found that greater adherence to a healthy beverage pattern was associated with a lower risk of premature death. 

Diets with such patterns were high in tea, coffee, and low-fat milk and low in alcohol, whole-fat milk, fruit juice, and sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened beverages. 

Although these findings are promising, the researchers caution that they only used self-reported dietary data at baseline and did not assess these again. Therefore, these studies do not reflect any dietary changes participants may have made. 

Additionally, they say that some potentially confounding factors were difficult to eliminate, suggesting that additional studies in diverse global populations would help strengthen the evidence and confirm the importance of healthy food and beverage consumption across broader populations. 

In other plant-based health news, a study at the University of Oxford, UK, concluded last year that a shift toward plant-based foods would help reduce nutritional imbalances, mortality and disease risks while benefiting environmental sustainability. 

Based on scientific research, dietary guidelines increasingly advise adding plant-based foods and proteins. However, another study revealed that ultra-processed foods with mainly plant-based ingredients are not always healthier, as the authors uncovered a link with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and death.