@@singularity6761 Probably. And they are wrong because it's not Mic the vegan who is going to tell them that we should interpret the results of this study with because the two compared diets were not even iso-caloric. He is just claiming "vegan diet healthier than any other diet".
Man, not gonna lie, I came into this video thinking you'd be skewed one way or another. Glad you just plainly talked about the facts. Very informative. Thank you.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 🌱 *A randomized trial comparing vegan and omnivore diets in identical twins, with 44 twins (22 pairs) randomly allocated to each diet.* 00:50 🥦 *Both diets designed to be healthy, avoiding ultra-processed foods; study lasted two months with free food delivery in the first month.* 01:19 📉 *After two months, vegans experienced a larger drop in LDL-cholesterol, a 17% reduction in fasting insulin, and a 1.5 kg weight loss compared to omnivores.* 02:34 🍽️ *Weight loss, reduced saturated fat intake, and possibly increased fiber intake contributed to the observed changes in insulin and cholesterol levels.* 03:28 🔄 *Study design allowed different calorie intake; isocaloric studies answer different questions than ad libitum studies, and both are valid.* 04:25 🧪 *B12 levels trended down in vegans, but not significantly; TMAO levels (indicator of animal product consumption) trended down but not statistically significant.* 05:41 🧬 *Biological age measured but not included in the publication; to be published separately. No significant differences in HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and fasting glucose.* 06:58 🥩 *Protein intake in vegans at 57g/day, possibly near the RDA; improved grain intake during the trial, but refined grains bounced back after the trial.* 08:19 🤔 *Diet satisfaction reduced in vegans, with 90% planning to continue some dietary changes; omnivores showed a higher likelihood of adherence.* 09:33 🍔 *Difficulties in adherence for vegans included dislike of foods, longer preparation times, unfamiliarity, and hunger satisfaction issues.* 10:51 🔄 *The study emphasizes common nutritional principles: sustainability, protein intake for vegans, cardiovascular metrics for omnivores, and favoring whole foods for both diets.* Made with HARPA AI
For me 10 years vegan my diet satisfaction is 10/10 for daily life but i agree when eating out the options arent as good. Fully vegan restaurants are expensive, its like a rice and lentil dish is over $24 at most places. Like come on, the cheapest foods you can prepare and you charge as much as a restaurant selling steak just because you have the vegan name. And then when you get it there is barely any veggies at all and still feel hungry after cause the portions aren't good cause people think vegans need to eat the same volume but we need more volume cause of the lower caloric density. I very rarely eat out cause of this. But if i had to rate my satisfaction score for eating out it would be a 1/10 so I agree with the participants. Eating at home, bo problem, eating out is tough.
My wife and I have been whole food plant-based for twenty years. There are very few health-oriented vegan restaurants. Most are heavily into sugar-oil-salt; especially the oil.
That's how capitalism works though 'Oh, they would have paid this much...' Anyway some of the vegan food I have cooked for myself has been ten times better than anything I've eaten in a restaurant.
That is what I dislike about vegan-only restaurants. They are touting to embrace a lifestyle but they charge sky-high prices which only gouge and turn off prospective people. Heck if you simply order a regular salad bowl from a normal place, it would be far cheaper too.
I've watched a ton of health gurus and hucksters and research reporters on U-Tube. You are the cream that rises. Among the few who join you in that, you sit alone at the very top: succinct, articulate w/o pomposity, untainted by the till, warm delivery, and sciencescienceSCIENCE. Thank you Stephen
@@DroppingBearVictim I like Physionic for great analysis of studies. He presents the same info in shorts, short videos and long detailed ones where it gets into the nitty gritty so it caters to all levels of interest and time commitment. His delivery style is quirky nerd.
Going fully plantbased 10 years ago cured my excema, gum issues, anxiety, EXTREME mind fog etc. It turned off health issues I had since I was a young kid like a switch in just a matter of days. blew my mind. Today I do triathlons, have perfect blood values, full of energy, happy and vibrant never had any health issues whatsoever ever. I guess everyone is different though and we might respond differently to foods. But for me it saved my life and gave me an awesome one.
I have been an ethical vegetarian (not vegan) now for 43 years. For most of this time, I ate a lot of dairy and packaged foods - and I ended up being diagnosed roughly a decade ago with 50% blockage in three coronary arteries and high blood pressure. I have since moved to a near-vegan, high-fiber version of the DASH diet - and am now enjoying reasonably good cardiac health. In hindsight, I can only attribute my coronary issues to the consumption of high-fat dairy and processed foods. I personally have no problem staying on my current diet, especially now that I am retired and have the time to prepare most meals.
Look up Proof podcast. He is vegan and has great podcasts. I particularly enjoyed 3+ hour Dr Thomas Dayspring interview. GL to you and sorry to hear about the cad.
Did you take any vitamin K2 (MK-7) with vitamin D during this time? Together, these prevent arterial calcium build up. Calcium is an essential mineral. Without support from K2 and vitamin D - either in diet or supplements - it may become a problem for some people.
This is a joke. Being vegetarian for ethical reasonst is the mosts stupid thing you can do. The dairy industry is causing the most suffer to animals. You would even reduce the suffering of animals by just eating meat instead of dairy. How can you not know this if you actually care about ethics for animals?
I do not mean to undermine you or to make you feel bad or anything, but I have to ask this. I get that you're a little older, but, what is your level of activity, do you do resistance training, do you walk/jog often?
Not opting to balance protein intake across both groups seems like a HUGE miss. Weird that they opted to specifically lower the vegan protein intake, potentially introducing confounding variables completely unnecessarily.
bear in mind the intake wasn't determined by the investigators, it was ad libitum. on the other hand an argument could be made that the investigators could have anticipated this and instructed the participants to prioritize more protein-rich foods
What if the reduced protein is THE REASON (or a major reason) that vegan diets are healthier overall? Then this "good design suggestion" would make the vegan diet look artificially worse than it is.
It does give a fair idea of a typical vegan diet though? And the results of this showed the vegans did better. The lower protein may also have impacted the second study where vegans aged less? I agree I would very much like to see exactly the same study but with normalised protein intake (from wholefoods vegans typically east, i.e. more legumes, nut etc - and not from powders) .
Good advice - let your stomach biome build up - otherwise maybe stomach pains and bloating etc - I have always loved veggies - even as a kid - but even I couldn't down a huge amount of partially steamed or raw broccoli- without a tiny amount of discomfit . And yes Benko great whole food tastes great - but takes time - think also as you get older - Junk/processed food becomes more negative desire - I'm not vegan - but I look at most pizzas and go yuck - But I know a simple pizza on a good dough , good quality cheese , fresh cherry tomatoes, basil etc can be nice at the right time - even when I used to eat red meat - had no desire for McDonalds burgers ever - yucky sweet bun - no texture meat etc highly processed sauces - however if you are cold , tired/exhausted the french fries do taste nice - Not that if I was buy myself I would ever buy them
Excellent video. I was vegan for almost 30 years.. a year ago I started eating everything. Number one was finding out I had osteoporosis (and discovered vegans are prone)…and, in addition, getting too much muscle wasting. Now I’m feeling so much better.. my BP went from 145/90 to 119/70. I lost 8 pounds ( I tried not to loose weight, but it just happened). I’m now 5’4” 118 lbs. I can get up from the floor easily-an issue that scared me. I really needed more protein, and I hope all vegans start to increase as you age…and watch those oscillates! One other massive change was eliminating all ultra processed foods and all added sugar and alcohol. I did that in one day after listening to Dr Robert Lustig speak and it woke me up to the horrendous detriment of UPF and sugar. Huge wake up call on that. Now I would call my diet more Mediterranean style and extremely low carb. I feel like this is how my body was meant to fuel.. and (like you mentioned in the video) this is truly personal. I’m 76.
@@wintyforever I would follow this up by saying you can get more than enough and it shouldn't be an issue, but clearly it is for some people. As a vegan it is particularly important to eat an (otherwise) balanced and varied diet, including legumes and leafy greens (among others) for protein and calcium, respectively. It is especially important to supplement vitamin D if you don't get enough sun exposure throughout the year (which omnivores are also deficient in), which lowers the risk of osteoporosis I'm not a vegan or even a vegetarian myself, but anecdotes that tell of developing deficiency related diseases are misleading because they are the result of a poorly planned vegan diet rather than inherent to a vegan diet This isn't a criticism of OP, I don't know their circumstances
@@ebirch90 definitely not. I have never been one to eat traditional junk food,… chips, sweets, soda etc.. I did drink wine I was not eating enough . Or varied enough, for sure. Vegan prepared food sometimes.. and bread was big. Never have i ever said I was a perfect vegan.. but I did not eat junk.
I have been whole food plant based for three years. At 71years old, I now weigh in at my high school wrestling weight. I'm never ever going back to the American Diet. I do not like cancer or heart disease. I was surprised how every restaurant and grocery stores have so many foods for this new trend. We really can rescue Americans from devastating Cancers and Heart Disease.
Great to hear that you feel great on WFPB! It's crazy if you look into what kills us the most.. and something as easy as cutting out animals from your diet can (statistically) eliminate this risk. I'm happy that institutions like the WHO came around and are now recommending a whole food plant based diet for every stage of life, instead of sticking to a diet based on tradition or culture.
Hey I'm really glad you shared. As a 65 year old it is really inspiring to me that we can be at a senior age and still change our diets and improve our health! Thank you.
Plant based for 6 years starting when I was 22. The easiest thing for me to do. At first it was for health benefits, but now I do it mostly for the love of nature and the animals, the rest is just a plus.
As a woman, eating enough protein was not a priority bc so many vegan influencers say americans consume too much protein. That was the wrong message for women, especially as they get older. We most definitely need to pay attention to protein bc women by design pick carbohydrates when left to their own device. I lost a lot of muscle during my few years of dieting. Women need to prioritize protein and resistance training. It would've been interesting to see how the breakdown of sexes affected protein fat and carb breakdown, bc I really agree that protein was quite low for the vegan group. Most aging women cannot afford a drop in protein intake just bc we don't have much muscle to spare...most of us.
This. As a middle age man I’m confused on the mixed messages on protein. Everything I see agrees that as we get older we need to do resistance training or a highly active lifestyle. If people are doing 2h /wk resistance training, can they can get by on a RDA minimum protein level? It seems clear that to gain muscle, it needs to be higher, and for optimal gains, it’s way higher. I think the danger for omnivores is the increase in protein comes hand in hand with a lot of calories from fat, the fat calories mean weight gain, and they tend to be really unhealthy fats.
One thing that many studies show is that older people in general need to supplement Creatine. And creatine is sorely lacking in a vegan diet. Not that an omnivore diet provides enough by itself, but it at least keeps you from a total lack. Creatine is EXTREMELY important for skeletal-muscular structure and, more importantly, for preventing brain degeneration.
Exercise is key! Protein is important, but along side other macro nutrients as well. Protein is blown out of proportion. Read Dr. Garth Davis’s book “Proteinaholic”.
As an endocrinologist I find it very easy for many patients to follow predominantly wholefood plant based with occasional animal products.... Almost eating animal products once in 15 days... Mostly some milk fish and eggs. I have seen many people slowly becoming vegan over time once they catch hold of vegan philosophy
As an ethical vegan, I think as of today, based on our knowledge and until we know better, WFPB + clams is as ethical as it gets (and they can eat clams more often than once every two weeks)
As you said, reactions & results are really not surprising and I get the reasons for the lower acceptance of vegan foods. If your “why” is not intrinsic or convincing enough it can can throw you off as the constant navigation to get the right food is tiring. Would be interesting to see if their attitude differed between the first and second month. Convenience plays a BIG role in food patterns.
The problem is what caused the benefits? The fact the vegan group were calorie restricted compared to the Omni means the improved bloods can't be attributed to a single cause, as it could equally be down to simple calorie deficit. Shame they built the study that way after taking the time to remove genetics as a possibility.
As a father of 19 year old identical twin boys this is super interesting. One plays college baseball and one has his personal trainer certification…..so both are very physically fit. Mom is a no gluten vegetarian and dad is an omnivore.
Do blood tests, we know today what causes problems. If LDL's are high expect a good chance of problems in mid to later life. I don't think we need to refine it down to twins, two kids from the same family will do it. I've been a vegetarian my whole adult life (over 50 years) and now I'm a vegan. I'm in excellent health, my brother has had two open heart surgeries. He told me I ate like a bird my whole life - he doesn't say that anymore! What's your age and blood profile and your wife's? We don't have to guess anymore science has given us answers, nutritional, physical exercise and emotional wellness.
@@mosfet500 So your assumption is that eating vegan has helped your health vs your brother who ate maybe not so well. It doesnt mean that eating meat would have changed your results
My wife and I have been whole food plant-based for twenty years (mainly following Dr. Fuhrman). We would never go back to omnivore, but it is true that food preparation time is an issue, and requires the serious long-term commitment. Yes we make big batches of soups and such to freeze, but still...
It takes longer to prepare because you can't buy bags of pre-made food that you pop in the oven. I spend a lot of time cooking for my family becaue we cook everything from scratch.
@@Mattycakes1 "I don't see how food prep would be any more of an issue on a whole food vegan diet than it would on a whole food omnivore diet." Much more chopping.
Hi doctor, Can you please make a video about pumpkin seeds / oil and concerns regarding lectin ? There's so much contradictory information around and it gets very confusing. You are the one person i can trust to deliver the complete information regarding such things. Thank you so much for all your thoroughly researched videos.
About 4 months ago, I received a diagnosis of mild diastolic dysfunction though EKG, ECG and Ejection fraction all perfectly normal. Also my CAC score was 766. After getting such a high number at a relatively young age, I followed up with an Angio CT and it showed no substantial blockages, nor did I have any symptoms of heart disease. I am 58 years old and at the time of the diagnosis, I was morbidly obese at 6 feet tall and about 318 pounds. After evaluating various information from different health sources, I chose to be vegan, plus low carb, low sodium and very little oil or margarine, but no calorie restrictions and I started walking for all local errands within about 1.5 miles. I also started taking supplements which included Red Yeast Rice, Omega 3, Berberine, Vitamin D3, Niacin, K2, Biotin, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, B12 and magnesium. I had a CBC and lipid panel right before my diet. My A1C was 5.8, fasting glucose was 125, my triglycerides were 228, LDL was 101 and HDL was 29. after 6 weeks on the Vegan diet my A1C was 5.3, fasting glucose 101, triglycerides were 200, LDL was 96 and HDL was 33. I also requested LP(a) which surprisingly was 10 and APO B was 96. I have no frame of reference since I never had those tested previously. I also weighed 298. With no calorie restriction, I am eating more than I ever did but I am guessing, the reduction in overall carbs plus the walking and subsequent weight loss influenced the numbers the most. I am following up again in February, I am curious to see the results then. I really am enjoying the Vegan diet. I tend to eat a lot of soy and meat substitute foods. I also add an occasional Amy's Organic Vegan microwave meal which I like a lot but have always liked Amy's.
@@FeelingPeculiar Keto would be very hard as a Vegan but I'm not eating anything with added sugar, I'm not eating bread that isn't keto and the only pasta I eat is Pasta Zero that has zero calories. So except a few grams of sugar from natural fruits and vegetables, I am pretty close to Keto. For me, keto is not sustainable but what I'm doing is.
I did strictly whole plant based for 5 months. I never felt better in my life, I lost weight, and my diabetes regressed a lot to the point where I almost didn't need medication. However, it was hard to stick to because starchy foods such as potatoes effect my blood sugar, and I did miss things like real cheese.
Going slowly worked for me....I cut out all oils, but needed to watch my carbs for awhile until my body adjusted. The spikes and dips subsided. NutsforCheese brand is my favorite, and better tasting than regular cheese, ( There are also some good "gouda" cheeses in several brands, and Violife makes a great plant-based feta that even my stepdaughter prefers to regular feta!) Most importantly, to go fully low-fat wfpb. ( Nuts, some nut butters, avocados, moderately, for good brain health. I like the green-light, yellow-light, red-light of "Mastering Diabetes" as a quide.) I hope that you are still plant-based and doing well!
Have you thought about moving to eating sweet potatoes instead of starchy low fiber traditional ones? Purple sweet potatoes are more expensive, but are especially good for diabetics. My A1C had dropped to 5.3 due to weight loss, but I had still largely eliminated potatoes from my diet unless I am eating a lot of fiber at the same time so as to be able to reduce the blood sugar and insulin spike. That's not what most restaurants in the US serve: there is little fiber in the meal. Cheese has gotten new attention recently because it's a fermented food, as is Greek yogurt. Fluid milk has been described as worse for you. We're taught to avoid saturated fats because they increase insulin resistance (making the carnivore diet proponents look silly), but it turns out, not all saturated fats are created equal. Long chain ones are worse.
If you eat a food with a low enough glycemic load, the blood sugar won't rise enough to harm the body. But a lot of the "treats" people like, have a high glycemic index. You can find low glycemic index foods in a vegan diet too, mostly the ones that have high protein or fat and low carbs. A keto vegan diet is possible too.
I have been doing a meta study on diets proposed on you tube. Every diet without exception that eliminates processed food and very high amounts of sugar is a great success. Paleo, vegan, omnivore, high carb, low carb, plant based, and on and on all a great success when processed food and high amounts of sugar are eliminated. Just my observation.
Not controlling for kcal I believe was a mistake. Without being isocaloric, I feel all results have a big asterisk next to them, as losing weight lowers all those markers just as you pointed out in the video.
I agree. If you are not used to the volume & fibre whole food vegan dishes contain you eat less calories least at the beginning and in case you are not smothering everything with olive oil. Weight loss alone changes a lot of markers.
The study is more about how people adhere / react to specific diets. This is what Gardner focuses in his research. That is why they also have a survey for rating the diets. It is weird to have these blood markers as a result of the study though.
@@amor_universal I suppose, yet less people said they could adhere to it. They also most likely lost muscle, as they didn’t control for protein (not a good outcome when trying to lose weight)
So a real world study with real people following a real diet is a mistake, it would be correct to make an artificial diet out of a real vegan diet to correct this "mistake". ..... riiiight.
Such a shame they didn't balance calorie intake across the groups. They went to the trouble of using identical twins to remove genetic differences, so as your summary points out they can get as close to the effect of the diets themselves, but then confound things by not actually being sure if the changes are specifically due to the omni/vegan or the calorie restriction/weight loss. When you consider the guy who ate half portions of MacDonald's for a month improved his blood work simply due to the calorie deficit (even eating fast food), then IMO that's a huge mistake to have made after putting so much work into getting so many identical twins for the study.
I've been a whole-food vegan for 7 years and I have absolutely no issue with protein intake, and I am very active. I don't supplement with protein, I just eat whatever I feel like eating (given of course that it's whole-food vegan), and all of my biomarkers are perfect. The only thing I supplement with is B12, but recent studies show that even meat eaters are now low in B12, because of the destruction of our soils, so everyone should be supplementing regardless of diet.
B12 is over blown nowadays. It is found in plant based milk and cereals so it is no longer an issue. Also, we now know B12 can be naturally found in ‘duck weed’, so eat that plant if you must, but there is also nutritional yeast to find it in abundance.
Weight loss means absolutely nothing!! You have to differentiate between muscle and fat… How much muscle did he lose or gain? And how much fat did he lose or gain? It’s odd that people still use the term weight loss…
Pretty sure the health changes such as improving IR and cholesterol wouldn't happen without fat loss. I'd think losing muscle wouldn't show up with positive changes to those but who knows. People usually lose muscle when they don't eat and these people were eating so yeah
Of course it means something. If you lose weight, it means you are in a caloric deficit and normally the body starts by burning fat and tries to keep the muscles if it has the minimum amount of protein to do so. It's not like 1 person is going to lose 90% of muscles before they start burning fat. Pretty much anyone losing weight is losing fat and depending amount of exercise, protein and other factors also losing some muscle mass.
Accurate measurements of fat loss, especially when the weight is only in the range of a couple of kilos is quite difficult. DEXA scans probably aren't even that accurate when you're talking about an average total weight loss of less than a kilo across both groups. That's probably why they didn't opt to do it, expensive intervention with probably very little insight.
For most people, losing some weight will improve their health, because for them losing some weight means losing mostly fat and they have too much fat. This makes going vegan a good choice for them. Some people, however, will not benefit from losing weight, because they are already lean, and instead they should put on some weight and build muscle. This is my case. There is no way, given my lifestyle, that I could get a caloric surplus with plants alone, at least without eating a ton of bread. For me, keeping some animal products is a must, but it is not for everyone.
Just would like to point out that in this study, the weight loss was not observed for the first four weeks of the study (when they were provided meals), but most of the cholesterol reduction happened during the first four week. Thus the cholesterol reduction can not be attributed to weight loss.
One thing I've read is that caloric restriction is a HUGE predictor of longevity. In mice especially, off the top of my head, I believe about a 30% caloric deficit lead to about 50% longer lifespan. The numbers might be a bit off, but not by much. It was astounding how much caloric restriction (up to a point) extended life. I also believ in Okinawa, one of the blue zones (with the biggest concentration of centenarians), people also consumed way less calories than in Japan in general. I don't know what the difference was in "aging" in the study, but if there really was a caloric deficit in the vegan twins, is it possible it was explained at least partially by that?
It's not all or none with these diets either. Including a moderate amount of fish, diary, and eggs with a mostly plant based diet will still yeild great health benefits without the need for b12 supplements.
@@RiDankulous Among the 7th day adventists in lomda linda, that's considerd a "blue zone" the pesco-vegetarians about out live the vegans and vegetarians. Fish and plant proteins (legumes, nuts, seeds) appear to be the only proteisn with health benefits long term.
@@adim00lah but they did worse on all other health markers than the vegans, which were a smaller group. Plus it was a fairly small difference in longevity. It would be interesting to know if the vegan group has become more attentive to Whole Foods and Long chain omega three since those findings a few years back. That may be one factor, who knows?
I don't get it. You either do ad libidum and then you can have different caloric intakes in the 2 groups OR you set the calorie intake to be the same for both groups. They seemed to do a bit of both. They did not do ad libidum, but they did set the calorie intake, but at different levels. Why?
@@JD-mz1rlconsidering weight loss is a massive all-cause risk reduction, one can't write that off. That being said, a 2 month study just doesn't seem to be long enough to tell much.
@@Lennybird91 > just doesn't seem to be long enough to tell much It's not just a single study in isolation; first, it's a well controlled study. Further, there are multiple independent lines of evidence - The Kevin Hall metabolic ward study supported all the findings (including much lower involuntary calorie reduction) all the long-standing studies show the same effect - vegans are the lowest-calorie consumers between vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, often by a large margin.
I think you might be misrepresenting. The vegans were offered the same 1800 calories a day as the omnivores but because they were eating more volume in plants... they were full at 160O calories. They could have eaten more if they had wanted more.
They could, but apparently they didn’t want more grains, beans, etc. It’s like in a ketogenic diet, people don’t want more meat/fish/fat, so in the end if you measure everything up they are on a caloric deficit. Mind blowing!
How does more volume lower your caloric needs? I eat plant based AND very low fat, no nuts, seeds, avocados or oil, and I still eat on average 2500-3000 calories a day.
All observations using ‘identical’ twins have two potential significant confounders. Identical genomes very likely do not have identical microbiomes, and almost certainly do not have identical immune systems. Studies rarely if ever address these variables.
I'd really like to see the same study but with the same calories intake and same protein intake too. Also would be interesting to see muscle % drop/ increase in the two groups. I wouldn't be surprised if the vegan groups levels of muscle mass dropped to unhealthy levels.
Looking at the link to the study, vegans also got their "good" HDL lowered as well as higher triglycerides (bad?) by the end of the study? Please tell me if I see it incorrectly. I only heard LDL mentioned in this video, but isn't raising triglycerides and lowering hdl a bad thing for cholesterol, insulin resistance and overall health? I've seen that high triglycerides with low hdl means you're insulin resistant or heading there depending on how far the numbers are apart. I've seen online calculators to check the ratio. It was the chart called Figure 2. Median Change From Baseline to 8 Weeks in Primary and Secondary Outcomes Between Vegan and Omnivorous Diet Arms I think it's a pity they didn't provide the food for the second month as well. It would have helped the participants to stick to the diet. You never know how much people really stick to it and it's already a really short study too
HDL-cholesterol and triglyceride differences were not statistically significant (this is briefly mentioned in the middle of the video together with a few other metrics). the lower fasting insulin also argues against increased insulin resistance agree that providing all food longer would help extend adherence
Two things I find annoying with the reported study(I just go by what was mentioned in the video): 1. Less calorie intake in the vegan group. This could easily explain the difference of drop in weight and blood sugar levels between the 2 groups. 2. Low intake of protein in the vegan group. This could also help explain the complaints regarding not feeling full while being on the vegan diet. I'm no vegan(but am intrigue by the reported health benefits) , but I can easily see the challenges choosing this diet. The food stores in my country, offers no prepared vegan menus or even semi-prepared foods. So, this means I would have to prepare each raw ingredient individually from the beginning, each time a vegan meal is prepared. And living in times where pre-pepared meals have been available for years(meals that at most just needs heating up, to be ready for consumption), this is a major problem. Talking people into spending hours to prepare meals....well, I can see a challenge here. I currently believe, no bigger change in prefered diets in the population is gonna happen, before the food stores/supermarkets starts to sell pre-pep'ed vegan oriented meals. Which are fast and easily to cook, for the average non-cooking interested person! 😉
I have been on a WFPB diet for over 5 years. Not having access to prepackaged vegan meals and food is probably a good thing as a lot of it is highly processed and only marginally better than the non-vegan processed foods. I have no patience for cooking but still manage to eat a variety of foods without spending much time in the kitchen by steaming frozen vegetables and combining it with some sort of beans or grains (I use quinoa, barley, bulgar or rice). I also like to get whole grain or the chickpea or lentil pastas in different shapes and eat them with some veggies and tomato sauce. You can find a wide variety of canned beans that are just cooked beans in a can. Also, once you get used to cooking grains they aren't that hard even for a bad cook like me.
Nope.Ive done the vegan thing for years. I spend 1-2 hours per week on food. Make beans and a big salad. You don't have to prepare nuts etc. A salad does not have to be made fresh every day if you keep the greens separate. I can prep my meal for the day in about 10 minutes. Eat OMAD, at home. easy. No biohazard from meat anymore BTW.
As with other supermarket food, many of the vegan oriented foods are highly processed with lots of added chemicals, so may be a lot less healthier than some plain, easy to cook omnivore food?
It’s interesting that that protein amount eaten ad libitum by the vegans actually pretty much matches previous research by Gardener where they looked at multiple different kinds of diets of people, freely, chosen by the people, and they just kept finding that the protein intake was pretty consistent. They were not looking at populations that were trying to build muscle or lose weight or anything, though the participants were of different ways, so it really looked like relatively naturally humans have some kind of mechanism that limits the protein. Was a very surprising idea to me. And, of course, there’s always gonna be outliers.
Thanks. I've been on the fence regarding trying vegan, for a while, and this study got me to try. I'm on day 4 of switching from omni to vegan. My mood has generally improved, but I am hungrier, and I'm struggling a little to eat enough protein without protein powder. Plus I'm trying to pack most of my calories into breakfast and lunch, and have a lighter dinner. Bean salad, natto, tofu, chickpeas, almonds, mung beans, steel cut oats, frozen corn. And started taking B12 supplements. I'm planning to monitor my ability to exercise and strength train, and make sure that maintaines or improves else I'm switching back to Omni.
I'm really envious that you have access to natto. I can recommend additionally to what you listed yuba, puffed tofu, lentil pasta (mixed with other pasta), risoni from legumes (mixed with rice) for protein which you haven't listed and for taste (and partly nutrition) nooch, yeast extract, dulse, fermented bean curd. Lacto-fermentation is also a great way to get delicious flavours without much work. I like to make seitan, too. But if you avoid protein powers that might not be for you. I would have recommended a transition with more refined foods (protein powder could be one of them). Adaption to eat more volume and especially more fiber can be rough. But you do you. Where I'm at I can eat more than 60g of protein (smoked tofu) as a snack between meals. Why do you think you're hungry? I was never hungry on a vegan diet. Do you eat enough kcals? For getting a feeling for protein and kcals I started tracking (and I'm tracking currently because I like it).
Try eating a large leafy salad at 6-7pm, I dress it with a vinegar based mixture, supposedly it helps to keep the blood sugar down. For me it keeps the hunger away until the next morning. I consume most of the calories for breakfast and lunch. Regarding the protein, I've also recently calculated how much I get and decided to add a scoop of protein powder per day - that brings me up to just below 1g/1kg of body weight. Btw - eating way more greens allowed me to lower my body weight quite a bit without experiencing the hunger issues.
You can’t use a person’s total body weight to estimate their recommended protein intake, you have to do the calculation based on their IDEAL body weight, rather than their actual body weight. So your estimation of their recommended protein intake may well have been an overestimation. And preponderance of science now appears to be pointing to protection restriction, rather than an abundance of protein, being optimal for longevity.
I've been vegan for 3 years now, and I have been tracking protein intake. In the beginning, one doesn't know much about plant nutrition, and 2 months is the learning period for most. After that, it is easy to get 90 to 120 gra of protein per day. Even without using protein powders. It requires a little training.
I live in the UK and I haven't eaten meat for 39 years although I occasionallyeat fish. One thing my mother taught me was to find out where to get my protein. As a result, I also learnt about iron absorption (with vitamin C), vitamin B12 ( in marmite and fortified foods) etc. I continue to be learn about diet and have much reduced my dairy intake but am careful about getting calcium. Diets high in meat, fish and dairy are so normalised here that it's easy to think a diet low in or without these maybe deficient. People in some far Eastern countries don't eat dairy & can actually smell it on our breath. I would be interested to see a video/study with calcium, muscle & calories studied.
The important thing is to eat something that works for you, the individual. Not just sustainability but also how your body reacts. For me, Plant Based Diet (aka Vegan), heavily inspired by Mediterranean and Japanese worked wonders. For others, a low carb diet might do well.
How do you feel about self-reporting studies? The section in the Jama network piece Collection of Dietary Intake clearly outlines that there is only self-reporting occurring at the start and then once week out of each month intervals. I would be curious to see how we could improve data collection for dietary studies, because I tend to see dietary studies that are either conflict of interest or biased in their presumptions when you look at the doctors conducting the studies. That's not super surprising, people study what they are interested in, but it makes confirmation bias a constant doubt.
There are a lot of people out there that track all their food intake and exercise. Some people have done it for years. I think someone should try to gather a big group of those people together and follow them for several years. They'd probably be happy to volunteer. You could probably even get them to track smoking habits and other drug use. Seems like there's a lot of good data sitting there that isn't being used. You wouldn't have to pay for food either, only bloodwork.
Heck just make a deal with a few app company’s to let people share data. I have probably 6 years of data on myfitnesspal coving 99% of everything I’ve eaten. I’d be more than happy to share it along with my daily weigh in, workouts, etc…
@@Dram1984 You would need those dedicated users though. I was only dedicated on the days i was dedicated on, and I no longer track anything. That's why you can't just buy the data from myfitnesspal for example. You would need people who actually cared about quality science.
I do omnivore but I do things to reduce my risk of heart disease, such as daily berberine supplementation, and long fasting every month. I also eat mostly plants and nuts, and avoid high mercury meats
You are my favorite nutrition expert but this study is pretty good. Randomized with identical twins and controlled food. I ❤️ you but you top it if you can …LOL This had all the Gardner alchemy 🤔 Get Gardner on to discuss this please. He is a great guest.
You were so blessed to not having been mentally programmed! I also disliked meat, dairy and eggs as a toddler, but was "trained" to "like" these foods.....)My favorites beans now are instant pot chickpeas & veggie stew, chickpea & minced root veggie salad, vegan chili, and 2 minute quick white beans & kale with onion and citrus.
For the life of me I don’t get why they would spend so much money on one of these studies but only measure ldl and not apob. The values of ldl were in the normal range which is where there is grater discordance between the two markers.
I’m 65 went #wfpb 4 years ago for health .. ldlc dropped from 190 to 80 .. I lost 70lb but the 190 was measured back 8n 2014 before I got temporarily fat. I run 6mi/day .. never give protein a second thought. All biomarkers improved from 2014 I have no idea what protein deficiency manifests as .. I guess I’ll know it when I see/feel it.
@NutritionMadeSimple, it's worth pointing out that the vegan group did NOT lose any weight in the first 4 weeks - weight was virtually identical in the 2 groups at the end of 4 weeks (71.1 kg ± 2.8 vegan, 71.3 kg ± 2.7 omni) and not statistically significant from baseline (70.9 kg vegan, 71.7 omni) - yet the vegans had lower LDL (91.3 vs 122.4), triglycerides (99.2 vs 115.1), and insulin (11.4 vs 14.7) despite NO weight loss. It was only after the subjects had to provide their own food that the vegan group lost a little weight (69.5 kg vegans vs 71.7 kg omni) - and yet their LDL went UP to 95.5 when they lost those extra 3 lbs. So clearly the improvement in LDL can't be attributed to weight loss, when their LDL went down *more* when they lost no weight, and then went back UP as they lost weight. Likely the reason they lost weight AND had worse LDL during the 2nd half of the study was because they did not have the training and experience in preparing truly healthy, balanced, high-protein vegan meals.
How can they not check if the loss is fat or muscle mass? For me vegan works every time good at the beginning, but then after month not more, I loss a lot of muscle and got other health issues, omnivores with not much diary was way better for me.
On the aging impact: I'm 69 yo and have been WFPB (a little fish) for 10 years. My Levine PhenoAge is consistently in low to mid 50s. BMI hovers around 25. Exercise moderately daily. This age calculator is weighted heavily on red cell distribution width (RDW on your CBC) and hsCRP (broad inflammatory marker) to a lesser degree. Diagnosed with CVD about 11 yo, so not all is good, but my lipid markers radically changed for the better when I changed food intake, Trigs from around 200 to consistently around 80 for example. Last ApoB was 67, not ideal (
Brilliant study. I just wish it could have been longer. Hopefully this will lead to more. I really admire Dr Gardner and your channel. Might there be a chance of an interview with him about this?
Dr. Gardner is a hoot! Although I’m an omnivore, when he talks (with so much excitement), I’m almost ready to switch vegan. His excitement is so infectious. I’ll probably get there. I just need to cook more lentils on a regular basis.
It was never stated how many, if any , of these participants were already vegan. My point is, regarding satisfaction with the diets, if all the participants were already eating an omnivore diet, then it was no big change, if any, to those who ate the omnivore diet during the trial. Whereas, for the participants who had to eat a vegan diet, it would have been a huge difference. I get the reason for choosing twins for this trial. But if you want to test the pros and cons of different diets, especially a vegan diet; pick participants who are already living on a vegan diet by choice and beliefs. Not omnivores who are offered free food, albeit vegan, for a month.
I've been vegan for some time now but I got there over the course of many years, starting as a pescatarian, becoming a vegetarian after several years, and then eventually becoming vegan after several years as a vegetarian. I supplement with Vitamin D3, K2, and calcium in addition to B12. Also I use a pea/hemp/rice protein powder in shakes both in the morning and evening to make sure I get enough protein.
Have you considered the possibility that many of the benefits of the vegan diet come from lower protein? Have you ever heard of Garth Davis and his book Proteinaholic?
@@lowbarbillcraig3689 I have not heard of Garth Davis, but I get roughly 1/3 of my protein from my plant protein shakes, without them I wouldn't even be hitting the RDA for protein. And even with them I'm probably a hair shy of what Dr. Stuart Phillips recommended when he came on to talk with Gil: th-cam.com/video/I2uejPpWk3c/w-d-xo.htmlfeature=shared Also I do a 24 hour fast once a week, meaning for the two days over which the fast spans I'm getting less than the RDA. So I don't think I would qualify as a "proteinaholic" haha
@@lowbarbillcraig3689 While many gym bros advocate for 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per body weight. In reality, it should be 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per lean body mass aka muscle mass for maintenance and healing. Also, going too low on protein will destroy your bone strength and bone density. So protein is important, not for looking jacked but because bone strength and density are important as you grow older in order to reduce fractures. So do not go too low protein. Eat your legumes and lentils and like it! www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8599066/
I saw some information a while back that one of the reasons that LDL goes down on a plant based diet is due to plant sterols, and there is disagreement whether sterols may damage blood vessels when they build up in the blood (especially for those who have a condition that places them at risk with plant sterols).
I grew up in India as a lacto-vegetarian (and I don’t like the taste of meat or anything that tastes like meat). I gave up dairy about 8-9 years ago (It was very hard to give up cheese). When I visit India, I have no satisfaction issues when eating outside. I live in Taiwan and although a significant portion of Taiwanese population is vegetarian, and vegan options are available at most restaurants, I still have satisfaction issue when eating outside as these options are limited and often are not to your liking. I have lived in many countries and India is the most convenient and satisfying if you are a vegetarian or vegan. Even omnivores from other cultures are satisfied eating vegetarian food in India. Anthony Bourdain said that, in India, he never missed eating meat.
Eat more beans/tofu/Tempeh to get protein over 100g. Its super easy, just buy those things in bulk at the grocery store and use them (even easier is just have 2 scoops of pea/rice/hemp/soy protein in a smoothie in the morning or something). However, only focusing on diet and nutrition is separating out some of the most important aspects to a vegan (lifestyle) diet. Not supporting the breeding, torture from birth, abuse, rape, family separation, and ultimately slaughter of very sentient innocent animals is one of the most "satisfying" things that comes from changing your diet. As well as not contributing to , for example, deadzones (extinction of populations of wild animals) of large areas of the globe due to insanely large amounts of cow fecus run off, just to name a single large environmental impact. Its just COMPLETELY unnecessary to support this industry. The ONLY thing someone can rationally argue in favor of eating animal products is the idea that "it tastes good" , which will very very shortly (less than a year) dissipate from your memory, once you find the right restaurants and learn to cook really good vegan food yourself.
You mention in passing the role weight loss plays in the levels of these biological markers. Are there studies on nutritional effects specifically ruling out weight changes? (I've already reduced my weight as much as is feasible.)
One factor not accounted for is that some people may respond better to a vegan diet, and others respond better to an omnivore diet (perhaps based on what their ancestors' diet was). Looking at the difference in response between each set of twins might have revealed this, instead of hiding it by just looking at the group as a whole. Also, calling diets "vegan" and "omnivore" still allow for the inclusion of foods that aren't the most healthy. For example: highly processed foods, vegetable oils, conventional meat/dairy (as opposed to grassfed), non organic food, and microwaving foods (blood results have shown this has a negative effect).
Odd that such a small trial group for such and important topic was excepted to hadle it self after a month. Also that it was only 2 month. Who sponsored this? One should also expect it to last at least a quarter . Also was there any info on what type of died they eat before? To make it less dirty one would expect that they had twin couples with different pre diets. Like this. Group 1: both twins ate omino before and 1/4 both switch to vegan 1/4 both switched to Omni 1/4 one switched to vegan 1/4 one kept Omni And group 2-4 should had similar cross correlation Ideally then they should go back to their pre study diet for 3 month and then do same test but reverse Only then you have more clean cross correlated data to analyze
About the differences observed in insulin reduction on the vegan group, could it be related to the reduction in saturated fat? My understanding is that saturated fat induces insulin resistance in muscle cells and that could explain why the amount of insulin needed in the vegan group was lower. great video as always, hugs and blessings from Argentina
The combination of fat and carbs increases blood sugar the most, more than carbs alone. If you remove the fat (like a vegan diet) or the carbs (keto) you’ll see improvements in insulin resistance. However, since they were in a caloric deficit and lost weight, that is the most likely reason they improved IR.
I eat very high carb very low fat, at least 500 grams most days and less than 30 grams of fat almost every day. Many days less than 10 grams. My fasting insulin is 2.3
@@dj-fe4ck i eat very similar amounts of carbs and fat as you, alike foods, not too much animal products, i keep fat really low specially is I am cutting (carb about 200-300 while cutting) i don't Know my fasting insulin levels but i have been using a cgm this last week and my glucose average is 110 mg/DL which i find s little higher but maybe it's norman with the weight loss stressor
Saturated fat consumption is associated with insuline resistance, indeed. Your conclusion is therefore lucid. Although, I wouldn't restrict to only one factor the cause of the outcome.
On all carb from fruits and veggies the drop of insulin is explained by in the absences of fat. The insulin receptors on the cut face of the cell wall are up-taking the glucose to utilize as energy. In the presence of fat those receptors are not expressed. Fat doesn’t need receptors to cross the phospholipid cell wall. Therefore, cell can utilize fat as energy, and doesn’t want glucose for energy, as a result the cell down regulates (removes) the receptors (insulin) from the cell wall and the glucose can not get inside of the cell, the glucose keeps circulating in the blood and pancreas keeps making insulin. Look into all rice diet do cure diabetes type 2. That’s why fruits should be eaten separately. Steak should be eaten with non starchy veggies. You are welcome -Dr.g (not vegan)
Thanks Dr. Gil, this info is interesting , the idea especially but wish the duration at least was twice as long. Also hope not to say this in inappropriate way, I see your recent videos show some significant "reverse again" looking like your residency videos, so whatever you are doing for your good health is showing ,
A month ago I switched from largely carnivore to mostly vegetarian. I eat meat a couple times a week. I eat a lot of eggs and dairy, especially low fat cottage cheese and protein powders. But I dropped about 7-8 lbs in a month. I was losing only 2-3 before.
@@pasta1998 I use the scale at Equinox, the $12,000 one that measures body comp. I had a small dip on muscle mass from 103 to 101.5 but I'm pretty faithful to eat protein and it's coming back up. So it isn't muscle loss
Appreciate the more balanced summary of the study on this channel, compared to most of the media gushing over how vegan outperformed omnivore. The lack of control on kcal explains both the weight loss and blood markers, and the lack of satisfaction on the diet also (at least partially) explains the lower consumption of kcal. So not surprising, and not at all the home run that most of the media stories are running with. Also very much appreciate you pointing out the low B12 and low protein in these diets; if this was planned more than an 8-week study, I'm sure the IRB would have shut it down for safety reasons!
Has there ever been an study comparing omnivore to herbivore, matching for macros intake? I know that was done matching for protein, but matching for everything? Does the source matter?
If the plant based diet makes people spontaneously eat a LOT less, how do you match macros? Matching for macros makes the comparison completely meaningless IMHO. this may be the closest you'll find www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-compares-low-fat-plant-based-diet-low-carb-animal-based-diet The participants, 11 men and nine women, received either a plant-based, low-fat diet or an animal-based, low-carbohydrate diet for two weeks, immediately followed by two weeks on the alternate diet.
The general public knows how animal products are made, don't kid yourself. It's just a reality we choose not to obsess about. Pretty much anything humans design/create including all that ESG power kills animals. Nothing will stop the development of the planet short of a biological, nuclear, or misc extinction event. Humans will spread out to space, then to the moon, then to the habitable planets, then beyond. It's unfortunate but animals probably don't have a nice role in that future.
Did they lock them both in the same room to account for other lifestyle factors, environmental factors, and other things that would possibly ruin this study?
If you want to eat whole, minimally processed foods, whether vegan or omnivore, that's going to require you to prepare your own food with either diet. So I don't see how choosing a vegan diet is more time consuming. You would think the twins who ate vegan who want to continue because of the health benefits they experienced. However, no mention was made of their ages or health going into this study. As they get older and continue on SAD, they might rethink that. For me, I'm vegetarian because I choose not to have animals slaughtered to provide food for my benefit. I would love to be 100 percent plant-based but I'm not there yet.
While I agree it is important to pick a diet that you gravitate toward and seems easy for you, I don't think it's the only way to create lasting change. I am pretty much the last person who I ever thought would be vegan since I like pizza and meat and always stayed away from most vegetables. However, after reading about the realities of factory farming and lies like "humane meat" and "cage free eggs," making the change was the easiest thing in the world for me because I had a higher reason to do so. Five years later, I am happily vegan for life, and my body is thanking me for it as well. .
a 200 kcal per day difference would result in about a 3.2 kg difference in fat loss. That's likely close to a 5% loss in bodyweight just do to the caloric difference and that alone can lower insulin, blood pressure and LDL and triglycerides very significantly. I've seen .5% A1C drop in 8 weeks with a 5% loss in bodyweight.
Thats not how hormones work. You are pointing out the caloric intake without taking into account the caloric expenditure which is different for each diet and person because hormones are the ones which control for it. You can eat 1000 calories a day but if you have high insulin and low leptin you will store almost all of it and be ravenously hungry.
@@amor_universal they also reported lower dietary satisfaction, which likely contributed, and means they won't be continuing. As far as calorie difference, 56 days times 200 kcal = 11200 kcal, which is more like 1.4 kg, which is pretty much the difference in weight loss
@@defeqel6537 people are notoriously un-conscious of factors influencing their minds. It takes some guts and courage to be vegan and do things which the majority of people around you do not do, but many people consider that a whole foods plant-based diet is incredibly satisfying. I have been very satisfied for the last 11 years and I would never go back to being omnivore.
Interesting that the people on the plant based diet reported feeling hungry, they were consuming 200 less calories than the omnis and 400 less than their baseline and losing weight, so that makes complete sense. One thing you need to learn when you eat a plant based diet, especially a WFPB diet, is to not feel guilty about your hunger and eat something. If you don't want to cook that means something like a handful of nuts or an apple.
There are also arguments that the RDA for protein is actually OVER-stated ... for one thing, since the RDA has to apply for everyone, they have to set it at a rate which fits those with the very lowest absorption of protein. So in other words, the vast majority, not being at that low end for absorption, will need less protein than the stated RDA. By an often considerable amount. It's REALLY easy to get enough protein.
@@Beatrice-nx5ld Can't really agree with you there. Plant proteins are only slightly less absorbed, 10% or so ... since one needs to consume a higher quantity of food as a vegan anyway, plant foods being less calorie dense, it takes care of itself. With older people, loss of muscle mass can be a concern ... but adding protein does NOT add muscle. Exercise does.
This is probably the most respectful comment section regarding diet that I have ever seen :)
Too science based here for most of the people, so they run over to mic the vegan or bart kay.
Seriously though. Normally it devolves into nonsense real quick.
meat is murder; diary is slavery
@@singularity6761 Probably. And they are wrong because it's not Mic the vegan who is going to tell them that we should interpret the results of this study with because the two compared diets were not even iso-caloric. He is just claiming "vegan diet healthier than any other diet".
WHO ARE you calling respectful?! I'm offended by your thoughtless assumptions! Also, I'm sorry if I offended anyone with this comment.
Man, not gonna lie, I came into this video thinking you'd be skewed one way or another.
Glad you just plainly talked about the facts. Very informative.
Thank you.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:00 🌱 *A randomized trial comparing vegan and omnivore diets in identical twins, with 44 twins (22 pairs) randomly allocated to each diet.*
00:50 🥦 *Both diets designed to be healthy, avoiding ultra-processed foods; study lasted two months with free food delivery in the first month.*
01:19 📉 *After two months, vegans experienced a larger drop in LDL-cholesterol, a 17% reduction in fasting insulin, and a 1.5 kg weight loss compared to omnivores.*
02:34 🍽️ *Weight loss, reduced saturated fat intake, and possibly increased fiber intake contributed to the observed changes in insulin and cholesterol levels.*
03:28 🔄 *Study design allowed different calorie intake; isocaloric studies answer different questions than ad libitum studies, and both are valid.*
04:25 🧪 *B12 levels trended down in vegans, but not significantly; TMAO levels (indicator of animal product consumption) trended down but not statistically significant.*
05:41 🧬 *Biological age measured but not included in the publication; to be published separately. No significant differences in HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and fasting glucose.*
06:58 🥩 *Protein intake in vegans at 57g/day, possibly near the RDA; improved grain intake during the trial, but refined grains bounced back after the trial.*
08:19 🤔 *Diet satisfaction reduced in vegans, with 90% planning to continue some dietary changes; omnivores showed a higher likelihood of adherence.*
09:33 🍔 *Difficulties in adherence for vegans included dislike of foods, longer preparation times, unfamiliarity, and hunger satisfaction issues.*
10:51 🔄 *The study emphasizes common nutritional principles: sustainability, protein intake for vegans, cardiovascular metrics for omnivores, and favoring whole foods for both diets.*
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For me 10 years vegan my diet satisfaction is 10/10 for daily life but i agree when eating out the options arent as good. Fully vegan restaurants are expensive, its like a rice and lentil dish is over $24 at most places. Like come on, the cheapest foods you can prepare and you charge as much as a restaurant selling steak just because you have the vegan name. And then when you get it there is barely any veggies at all and still feel hungry after cause the portions aren't good cause people think vegans need to eat the same volume but we need more volume cause of the lower caloric density. I very rarely eat out cause of this. But if i had to rate my satisfaction score for eating out it would be a 1/10 so I agree with the participants. Eating at home, bo problem, eating out is tough.
Totally agree.
My wife and I have been whole food plant-based for twenty years. There are very few health-oriented vegan restaurants. Most are heavily into sugar-oil-salt; especially the oil.
That's how capitalism works though 'Oh, they would have paid this much...' Anyway some of the vegan food I have cooked for myself has been ten times better than anything I've eaten in a restaurant.
So true. I find going to a steak house is the easiest. Baked potatoes, asparagus and broccoli. Boring, but easy!!
That is what I dislike about vegan-only restaurants. They are touting to embrace a lifestyle but they charge sky-high prices which only gouge and turn off prospective people.
Heck if you simply order a regular salad bowl from a normal place, it would be far cheaper too.
I've watched a ton of health gurus and hucksters and research reporters on U-Tube. You are the cream that rises. Among the few who join you in that, you sit alone at the very top: succinct, articulate w/o pomposity, untainted by the till, warm delivery, and sciencescienceSCIENCE. Thank you
Stephen
Agreed!
Very true.
Who else do you recommend?
@@DroppingBearVictim I like Physionic for great analysis of studies. He presents the same info in shorts, short videos and long detailed ones where it gets into the nitty gritty so it caters to all levels of interest and time commitment. His delivery style is quirky nerd.
Going fully plantbased 10 years ago cured my excema, gum issues, anxiety, EXTREME mind fog etc. It turned off health issues I had since I was a young kid like a switch in just a matter of days. blew my mind. Today I do triathlons, have perfect blood values, full of energy, happy and vibrant never had any health issues whatsoever ever. I guess everyone is different though and we might respond differently to foods. But for me it saved my life and gave me an awesome one.
Wow!!! Thanks for sharing.
@@RaveyDaveydumb comment. There's always the A H. That's you
@@addiecoelman1996 why are you assuming the worst? What if he's genuinely asking, not everyone has spent hundreds of hours reading up on nutrition...
@@addiecoelman1996 The irony of your comment ....
@@RaveyDaveyremoving dairy can , if you have a sensitivity to it, can reverse anxiety. Removing grapes did the same for me.
I have been an ethical vegetarian (not vegan) now for 43 years. For most of this time, I ate a lot of dairy and packaged foods - and I ended up being diagnosed roughly a decade ago with 50% blockage in three coronary arteries and high blood pressure. I have since moved to a near-vegan, high-fiber version of the DASH diet - and am now enjoying reasonably good cardiac health. In hindsight, I can only attribute my coronary issues to the consumption of high-fat dairy and processed foods. I personally have no problem staying on my current diet, especially now that I am retired and have the time to prepare most meals.
Look up Proof podcast. He is vegan and has great podcasts. I particularly enjoyed 3+ hour Dr Thomas Dayspring interview. GL to you and sorry to hear about the cad.
How are dairy and eggs ethical?
Did you take any vitamin K2 (MK-7) with vitamin D during this time? Together, these prevent arterial calcium build up. Calcium is an essential mineral. Without support from K2 and vitamin D - either in diet or supplements - it may become a problem for some people.
This is a joke. Being vegetarian for ethical reasonst is the mosts stupid thing you can do. The dairy industry is causing the most suffer to animals. You would even reduce the suffering of animals by just eating meat instead of dairy. How can you not know this if you actually care about ethics for animals?
I do not mean to undermine you or to make you feel bad or anything, but I have to ask this. I get that you're a little older, but, what is your level of activity, do you do resistance training, do you walk/jog often?
Not opting to balance protein intake across both groups seems like a HUGE miss. Weird that they opted to specifically lower the vegan protein intake, potentially introducing confounding variables completely unnecessarily.
bear in mind the intake wasn't determined by the investigators, it was ad libitum. on the other hand an argument could be made that the investigators could have anticipated this and instructed the participants to prioritize more protein-rich foods
@@NutritionMadeSimple Okay, I apologize I missed that, thanks for the clarification. And excellent video as always!
What if the reduced protein is THE REASON (or a major reason) that vegan diets are healthier overall?
Then this "good design suggestion" would make the vegan diet look artificially worse than it is.
It does give a fair idea of a typical vegan diet though? And the results of this showed the vegans did better. The lower protein may also have impacted the second study where vegans aged less? I agree I would very much like to see exactly the same study but with normalised protein intake (from wholefoods vegans typically east, i.e. more legumes, nut etc - and not from powders) .
@@NutritionMadeSimpleon the other hand, this is probably more representative of diets of foods people would reasonably eat
If you choose vegan, take you time (years) to get there at your own pace. After starting vegan 15 years ago, I love the diet
I love vegetables. Meat is easier to digest for me. I wish I could be a vegan.
*lifestyle. Vegan is not a diet, it is a lifestyle change. An example diet for a practising vegan might be whole-foods plant-based.
That’s right, whole food, plant based, what’s not to love!
Good advice - let your stomach biome build up - otherwise maybe stomach pains and bloating etc - I have always loved veggies - even as a kid - but even I couldn't down a huge amount of partially steamed or raw broccoli- without a tiny amount of discomfit . And yes Benko great whole food tastes great - but takes time - think also as you get older - Junk/processed food becomes more negative desire - I'm not vegan - but I look at most pizzas and go yuck - But I know a simple pizza on a good dough , good quality cheese , fresh cherry tomatoes, basil etc can be nice at the right time - even when I used to eat red meat - had no desire for McDonalds burgers ever - yucky sweet bun - no texture meat etc highly processed sauces - however if you are cold , tired/exhausted the french fries do taste nice - Not that if I was buy myself I would ever buy them
Veganism isn't a diet.
Excellent video. I was vegan for almost 30 years.. a year ago I started eating everything. Number one was finding out I had osteoporosis (and discovered vegans are prone)…and, in addition, getting too much muscle wasting. Now I’m feeling so much better.. my BP went from 145/90 to 119/70. I lost 8 pounds ( I tried not to loose weight, but it just happened). I’m now 5’4” 118 lbs. I can get up from the floor easily-an issue that scared me. I really needed more protein, and I hope all vegans start to increase as you age…and watch those oscillates! One other massive change was eliminating all ultra processed foods and all added sugar and alcohol. I did that in one day after listening to Dr Robert Lustig speak and it woke me up to the horrendous detriment of UPF and sugar. Huge wake up call on that. Now I would call my diet more Mediterranean style and extremely low carb. I feel like this is how my body was meant to fuel.. and (like you mentioned in the video) this is truly personal. I’m 76.
Perhaps it was just the junk you were eating...
Did you go to the gym to avoid muscle wasting?
There are many ways to get adequate protein on a vegan diet. Many athletes are becoming vegan.
@@wintyforever I would follow this up by saying you can get more than enough and it shouldn't be an issue, but clearly it is for some people. As a vegan it is particularly important to eat an (otherwise) balanced and varied diet, including legumes and leafy greens (among others) for protein and calcium, respectively. It is especially important to supplement vitamin D if you don't get enough sun exposure throughout the year (which omnivores are also deficient in), which lowers the risk of osteoporosis
I'm not a vegan or even a vegetarian myself, but anecdotes that tell of developing deficiency related diseases are misleading because they are the result of a poorly planned vegan diet rather than inherent to a vegan diet
This isn't a criticism of OP, I don't know their circumstances
@@ebirch90 definitely not. I have never been one to eat traditional junk food,… chips, sweets, soda etc..
I did drink wine
I was not eating enough . Or varied enough, for sure.
Vegan prepared food sometimes.. and bread was big.
Never have i ever said I was a perfect vegan.. but I did not eat junk.
I have been whole food plant based for three years. At 71years old, I now weigh in at my high school wrestling weight. I'm never ever going back to the American Diet. I do not like cancer or heart disease. I was surprised how every restaurant and grocery stores have so many foods for this new trend. We really can rescue Americans from devastating Cancers and Heart Disease.
Great to hear that you feel great on WFPB! It's crazy if you look into what kills us the most.. and something as easy as cutting out animals from your diet can (statistically) eliminate this risk. I'm happy that institutions like the WHO came around and are now recommending a whole food plant based diet for every stage of life, instead of sticking to a diet based on tradition or culture.
standard american diet is euphemism for capitalism diet. capitalism is universal pathology
Hey I'm really glad you shared. As a 65 year old it is really inspiring to me that we can be at a senior age and still change our diets and improve our health! Thank you.
Actually omnivore diet does not have to be the american diet
Plant based for 6 years starting when I was 22. The easiest thing for me to do. At first it was for health benefits, but now I do it mostly for the love of nature and the animals, the rest is just a plus.
As a woman, eating enough protein was not a priority bc so many vegan influencers say americans consume too much protein. That was the wrong message for women, especially as they get older. We most definitely need to pay attention to protein bc women by design pick carbohydrates when left to their own device. I lost a lot of muscle during my few years of dieting. Women need to prioritize protein and resistance training. It would've been interesting to see how the breakdown of sexes affected protein fat and carb breakdown, bc I really agree that protein was quite low for the vegan group. Most aging women cannot afford a drop in protein intake just bc we don't have much muscle to spare...most of us.
This. As a middle age man I’m confused on the mixed messages on protein. Everything I see agrees that as we get older we need to do resistance training or a highly active lifestyle. If people are doing 2h /wk resistance training, can they can get by on a RDA minimum protein level? It seems clear that to gain muscle, it needs to be higher, and for optimal gains, it’s way higher.
I think the danger for omnivores is the increase in protein comes hand in hand with a lot of calories from fat, the fat calories mean weight gain, and they tend to be really unhealthy fats.
One thing that many studies show is that older people in general need to supplement Creatine. And creatine is sorely lacking in a vegan diet. Not that an omnivore diet provides enough by itself, but it at least keeps you from a total lack.
Creatine is EXTREMELY important for skeletal-muscular structure and, more importantly, for preventing brain degeneration.
Exercise is key! Protein is important, but along side other macro nutrients as well. Protein is blown out of proportion. Read Dr. Garth Davis’s book “Proteinaholic”.
Reasonable protein ide say over 100 grams per day
@@Savagegloryphot agree, there are many sources of protein and there are ways to reduce saturated fat even in red meat consumption.
As an endocrinologist I find it very easy for many patients to follow predominantly wholefood plant based with occasional animal products.... Almost eating animal products once in 15 days... Mostly some milk fish and eggs. I have seen many people slowly becoming vegan over time once they catch hold of vegan philosophy
Very wise advice. I follow this
As an ethical vegan, I think as of today, based on our knowledge and until we know better, WFPB + clams is as ethical as it gets (and they can eat clams more often than once every two weeks)
I'm not racist but I'm occasionally racists on the weekends
@@darith770 You're why people hate vegans.
This is similar to India's diet. Although they suffer greatly from Diabetes and Heart disease more so than almost anyone else in the world.
As you said, reactions & results are really not surprising and I get the reasons for the lower acceptance of vegan foods. If your “why” is not intrinsic or convincing enough it can can throw you off as the constant navigation to get the right food is tiring. Would be interesting to see if their attitude differed between the first and second month. Convenience plays a BIG role in food patterns.
The problem is what caused the benefits? The fact the vegan group were calorie restricted compared to the Omni means the improved bloods can't be attributed to a single cause, as it could equally be down to simple calorie deficit. Shame they built the study that way after taking the time to remove genetics as a possibility.
As a father of 19 year old identical twin boys this is super interesting. One plays college baseball and one has his personal trainer certification…..so both are very physically fit. Mom is a no gluten vegetarian and dad is an omnivore.
Do blood tests, we know today what causes problems. If LDL's are high expect a good chance of problems in mid to later life. I don't think we need to refine it down to twins, two kids from the same family will do it. I've been a vegetarian my whole adult life (over 50 years) and now I'm a vegan. I'm in excellent health, my brother has had two open heart surgeries. He told me I ate like a bird my whole life - he doesn't say that anymore!
What's your age and blood profile and your wife's? We don't have to guess anymore science has given us answers, nutritional, physical exercise and emotional wellness.
@@mosfet500 So your assumption is that eating vegan has helped your health vs your brother who ate maybe not so well. It doesnt mean that eating meat would have changed your results
My wife and I have been whole food plant-based for twenty years (mainly following Dr. Fuhrman). We would never go back to omnivore, but it is true that food preparation time is an issue, and requires the serious long-term commitment. Yes we make big batches of soups and such to freeze, but still...
Plant-based sux. Glad I got off it.
How can it take longer to prepare and cook? 🤔
It takes longer to prepare because you can't buy bags of pre-made food that you pop in the oven. I spend a lot of time cooking for my family becaue we cook everything from scratch.
@@robinpetersson3081 your body and over all health probably appreciates that though. ☺️
@@Mattycakes1 "I don't see how food prep would be any more of an issue on a whole food vegan diet than it would on a whole food omnivore diet." Much more chopping.
Hi doctor,
Can you please make a video about pumpkin seeds / oil and concerns regarding lectin ? There's so much contradictory information around and it gets very confusing. You are the one person i can trust to deliver the complete information regarding such things.
Thank you so much for all your thoroughly researched videos.
About 4 months ago, I received a diagnosis of mild diastolic dysfunction though EKG, ECG and Ejection fraction all perfectly normal. Also my CAC score was 766. After getting such a high number at a relatively young age, I followed up with an Angio CT and it showed no substantial blockages, nor did I have any symptoms of heart disease. I am 58 years old and at the time of the diagnosis, I was morbidly obese at 6 feet tall and about 318 pounds. After evaluating various information from different health sources, I chose to be vegan, plus low carb, low sodium and very little oil or margarine, but no calorie restrictions and I started walking for all local errands within about 1.5 miles. I also started taking supplements which included Red Yeast Rice, Omega 3, Berberine, Vitamin D3, Niacin, K2, Biotin, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, B12 and magnesium. I had a CBC and lipid panel right before my diet. My A1C was 5.8, fasting glucose was 125, my triglycerides were 228, LDL was 101 and HDL was 29. after 6 weeks on the Vegan diet my A1C was 5.3, fasting glucose 101, triglycerides were 200, LDL was 96 and HDL was 33. I also requested LP(a) which surprisingly was 10 and APO B was 96. I have no frame of reference since I never had those tested previously. I also weighed 298. With no calorie restriction, I am eating more than I ever did but I am guessing, the reduction in overall carbs plus the walking and subsequent weight loss influenced the numbers the most. I am following up again in February, I am curious to see the results then. I really am enjoying the Vegan diet. I tend to eat a lot of soy and meat substitute foods. I also add an occasional Amy's Organic Vegan microwave meal which I like a lot but have always liked Amy's.
Good job!
I'd love to know how you would do on Keto!
@@FeelingPeculiar Keto would be very hard as a Vegan but I'm not eating anything with added sugar, I'm not eating bread that isn't keto and the only pasta I eat is Pasta Zero that has zero calories. So except a few grams of sugar from natural fruits and vegetables, I am pretty close to Keto. For me, keto is not sustainable but what I'm doing is.
I did strictly whole plant based for 5 months. I never felt better in my life, I lost weight, and my diabetes regressed a lot to the point where I almost didn't need medication. However, it was hard to stick to because starchy foods such as potatoes effect my blood sugar, and I did miss things like real cheese.
Going slowly worked for me....I cut out all oils, but needed to watch my carbs for awhile until my body adjusted. The spikes and dips subsided. NutsforCheese brand is my favorite, and better tasting than regular cheese, ( There are also some good "gouda" cheeses in several brands, and Violife makes a great plant-based feta that even my stepdaughter prefers to regular feta!) Most importantly, to go fully low-fat wfpb. ( Nuts, some nut butters, avocados, moderately, for good brain health. I like the green-light, yellow-light, red-light of "Mastering Diabetes" as a quide.) I hope that you are still plant-based and doing well!
Have you thought about moving to eating sweet potatoes instead of starchy low fiber traditional ones? Purple sweet potatoes are more expensive, but are especially good for diabetics. My A1C had dropped to 5.3 due to weight loss, but I had still largely eliminated potatoes from my diet unless I am eating a lot of fiber at the same time so as to be able to reduce the blood sugar and insulin spike. That's not what most restaurants in the US serve: there is little fiber in the meal. Cheese has gotten new attention recently because it's a fermented food, as is Greek yogurt. Fluid milk has been described as worse for you. We're taught to avoid saturated fats because they increase insulin resistance (making the carnivore diet proponents look silly), but it turns out, not all saturated fats are created equal. Long chain ones are worse.
If you eat a food with a low enough glycemic load, the blood sugar won't rise enough to harm the body. But a lot of the "treats" people like, have a high glycemic index. You can find low glycemic index foods in a vegan diet too, mostly the ones that have high protein or fat and low carbs. A keto vegan diet is possible too.
I have been doing a meta study on diets proposed on you tube. Every diet without exception that eliminates processed food and very high amounts of sugar is a great success. Paleo, vegan, omnivore, high carb, low carb, plant based, and on and on all a great success when processed food and high amounts of sugar are eliminated. Just my observation.
Not controlling for kcal I believe was a mistake. Without being isocaloric, I feel all results have a big asterisk next to them, as losing weight lowers all those markers just as you pointed out in the video.
I agree. If you are not used to the volume & fibre whole food vegan dishes contain you eat less calories least at the beginning and in case you are not smothering everything with olive oil. Weight loss alone changes a lot of markers.
yes, but the fact that they could eat all they want (and were instructed to eat until satiety) shows it is easier to lose weight on a vegan diet.
The study is more about how people adhere / react to specific diets. This is what Gardner focuses in his research. That is why they also have a survey for rating the diets. It is weird to have these blood markers as a result of the study though.
@@amor_universal I suppose, yet less people said they could adhere to it. They also most likely lost muscle, as they didn’t control for protein (not a good outcome when trying to lose weight)
So a real world study with real people following a real diet is a mistake,
it would be correct to make an artificial diet out of a real vegan diet to correct this "mistake".
..... riiiight.
Such a shame they didn't balance calorie intake across the groups. They went to the trouble of using identical twins to remove genetic differences, so as your summary points out they can get as close to the effect of the diets themselves, but then confound things by not actually being sure if the changes are specifically due to the omni/vegan or the calorie restriction/weight loss. When you consider the guy who ate half portions of MacDonald's for a month improved his blood work simply due to the calorie deficit (even eating fast food), then IMO that's a huge mistake to have made after putting so much work into getting so many identical twins for the study.
It’s such a huge oversight I have trouble believing it wasn’t intentional.
I've been a whole-food vegan for 7 years and I have absolutely no issue with protein intake, and I am very active. I don't supplement with protein, I just eat whatever I feel like eating (given of course that it's whole-food vegan), and all of my biomarkers are perfect. The only thing I supplement with is B12, but recent studies show that even meat eaters are now low in B12, because of the destruction of our soils, so everyone should be supplementing regardless of diet.
B12 is over blown nowadays. It is found in plant based milk and cereals so it is no longer an issue. Also, we now know B12 can be naturally found in ‘duck weed’, so eat that plant if you must, but there is also nutritional yeast to find it in abundance.
Weight loss means absolutely nothing!! You have to differentiate between muscle and fat… How much muscle did he lose or gain? And how much fat did he lose or gain? It’s odd that people still use the term weight loss…
Pretty sure the health changes such as improving IR and cholesterol wouldn't happen without fat loss. I'd think losing muscle wouldn't show up with positive changes to those but who knows. People usually lose muscle when they don't eat and these people were eating so yeah
There was almost definitely not muscle gain, even beginners don't start to increase mass until the 2-3 month mark when lifting weights.
Of course it means something. If you lose weight, it means you are in a caloric deficit and normally the body starts by burning fat and tries to keep the muscles if it has the minimum amount of protein to do so. It's not like 1 person is going to lose 90% of muscles before they start burning fat. Pretty much anyone losing weight is losing fat and depending amount of exercise, protein and other factors also losing some muscle mass.
Accurate measurements of fat loss, especially when the weight is only in the range of a couple of kilos is quite difficult. DEXA scans probably aren't even that accurate when you're talking about an average total weight loss of less than a kilo across both groups. That's probably why they didn't opt to do it, expensive intervention with probably very little insight.
For most people, losing some weight will improve their health, because for them losing some weight means losing mostly fat and they have too much fat. This makes going vegan a good choice for them. Some people, however, will not benefit from losing weight, because they are already lean, and instead they should put on some weight and build muscle. This is my case. There is no way, given my lifestyle, that I could get a caloric surplus with plants alone, at least without eating a ton of bread. For me, keeping some animal products is a must, but it is not for everyone.
Hi dr great! As always very well done! Thank you so much!❤❤❤❤
It would be really interesting to see what a typical day of eating looks like for you
A bit different but he does have a shopping video somewhere
I agree
I am sure he did one
Yes please !!!
He made one a few years ago
Just would like to point out that in this study, the weight loss was not observed for the first four weeks of the study (when they were provided meals), but most of the cholesterol reduction happened during the first four week. Thus the cholesterol reduction can not be attributed to weight loss.
Lean mass loss or gain would be helpful. Also, are they taking people who are already lean versus people who are obese?
Exactly
Yes because lean is the normal.
Mean BMI was 25.9
One thing I've read is that caloric restriction is a HUGE predictor of longevity. In mice especially, off the top of my head, I believe about a 30% caloric deficit lead to about 50% longer lifespan. The numbers might be a bit off, but not by much. It was astounding how much caloric restriction (up to a point) extended life.
I also believ in Okinawa, one of the blue zones (with the biggest concentration of centenarians), people also consumed way less calories than in Japan in general.
I don't know what the difference was in "aging" in the study, but if there really was a caloric deficit in the vegan twins, is it possible it was explained at least partially by that?
1:20 - It is NOT "by definition".
It is by your analysis that longer duration is required.
It's not all or none with these diets either. Including a moderate amount of fish, diary, and eggs with a mostly plant based diet will still yeild great health benefits without the need for b12 supplements.
@@RiDankulous Among the 7th day adventists in lomda linda, that's considerd a "blue zone" the pesco-vegetarians about out live the vegans and vegetarians.
Fish and plant proteins (legumes, nuts, seeds) appear to be the only proteisn with health benefits long term.
@@adim00lah but they did worse on all other health markers than the vegans, which were a smaller group. Plus it was a fairly small difference in longevity. It would be interesting to know if the vegan group has become more attentive to Whole Foods and Long chain omega three since those findings a few years back. That may be one factor, who knows?
I don't get it. You either do ad libidum and then you can have different caloric intakes in the 2 groups OR you set the calorie intake to be the same for both groups.
They seemed to do a bit of both. They did not do ad libidum, but they did set the calorie intake, but at different levels.
Why?
they let the participants decide how much to eat (ad libitum)
Ah ok, thanks. I missed that bit
Technical term for identical twins is: Fetus repeatus.
Interesting stuff, Doc. Am interested in hearing more about the "biologically younger" info that hasn't been released
1800 calories at maintenance? These must be some very small or inactive people.
That's a great study, thanks.
Decent sized V for vegans. The caution regarding protein intake for vegans is much appreciated.
Unless your goal is to keep losing weight (not sustainable), looks like a L
He did one on what he eats in a day; beans, veggies, fruit, and seeds mostly.
@@JD-mz1rlconsidering weight loss is a massive all-cause risk reduction, one can't write that off. That being said, a 2 month study just doesn't seem to be long enough to tell much.
@@Lennybird91 > just doesn't seem to be long enough to tell much
It's not just a single study in isolation; first, it's a well controlled study.
Further, there are multiple independent lines of evidence -
The Kevin Hall metabolic ward study supported all the findings (including much lower involuntary calorie reduction)
all the long-standing studies show the same effect - vegans are the lowest-calorie consumers between vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, often by a large margin.
@@Lennybird91 that completely depends on your weight. Continued weight loss when underweight will surely lead to all cause mortality, indeed.
I think you might be misrepresenting. The vegans were offered the same 1800 calories a day as the omnivores but because they were eating more volume in plants... they were full at 160O calories. They could have eaten more if they had wanted more.
that's correct, hence ad libitum. both could choose the amount they ate, this is covered early in the vid
@@NutritionMadeSimple oh, my bad
They could, but apparently they didn’t want more grains, beans, etc. It’s like in a ketogenic diet, people don’t want more meat/fish/fat, so in the end if you measure everything up they are on a caloric deficit. Mind blowing!
How does more volume lower your caloric needs? I eat plant based AND very low fat, no nuts, seeds, avocados or oil, and I still eat on average 2500-3000 calories a day.
All observations using ‘identical’ twins have two potential significant confounders. Identical genomes very likely do not have identical microbiomes, and almost certainly do not have identical immune systems. Studies rarely if ever address these variables.
I'd really like to see the same study but with the same calories intake and same protein intake too.
Also would be interesting to see muscle % drop/ increase in the two groups. I wouldn't be surprised if the vegan groups levels of muscle mass dropped to unhealthy levels.
look up and follow the numerous successes of vegan athletes for the answer to your question....
Looking at the link to the study, vegans also got their "good" HDL lowered as well as higher triglycerides (bad?) by the end of the study? Please tell me if I see it incorrectly. I only heard LDL mentioned in this video, but isn't raising triglycerides and lowering hdl a bad thing for cholesterol, insulin resistance and overall health? I've seen that high triglycerides with low hdl means you're insulin resistant or heading there depending on how far the numbers are apart. I've seen online calculators to check the ratio.
It was the chart called Figure 2. Median Change From Baseline to 8 Weeks in Primary and Secondary Outcomes Between Vegan and Omnivorous Diet Arms
I think it's a pity they didn't provide the food for the second month as well. It would have helped the participants to stick to the diet. You never know how much people really stick to it and it's already a really short study too
HDL-cholesterol and triglyceride differences were not statistically significant (this is briefly mentioned in the middle of the video together with a few other metrics). the lower fasting insulin also argues against increased insulin resistance
agree that providing all food longer would help extend adherence
@NutritionMadeSimple thanks for your reply Gil. Boas festas 🙂🎄✨
Two things I find annoying with the reported study(I just go by what was mentioned in the video):
1. Less calorie intake in the vegan group.
This could easily explain the difference of drop in weight and blood sugar levels between the 2 groups.
2. Low intake of protein in the vegan group.
This could also help explain the complaints regarding not feeling full while being on the vegan diet.
I'm no vegan(but am intrigue by the reported health benefits) , but I can easily see the challenges choosing this diet.
The food stores in my country, offers no prepared vegan menus or even semi-prepared foods.
So, this means I would have to prepare each raw ingredient individually from the beginning, each time a vegan meal is prepared.
And living in times where pre-pepared meals have been available for years(meals that at most just needs heating up, to be ready for consumption), this is a major problem.
Talking people into spending hours to prepare meals....well, I can see a challenge here.
I currently believe, no bigger change in prefered diets in the population is gonna happen, before the food stores/supermarkets starts to sell pre-pep'ed vegan oriented meals. Which are fast and easily to cook, for the average non-cooking interested person! 😉
I have been on a WFPB diet for over 5 years. Not having access to prepackaged vegan meals and food is probably a good thing as a lot of it is highly processed and only marginally better than the non-vegan processed foods. I have no patience for cooking but still manage to eat a variety of foods without spending much time in the kitchen by steaming frozen vegetables and combining it with some sort of beans or grains (I use quinoa, barley, bulgar or rice). I also like to get whole grain or the chickpea or lentil pastas in different shapes and eat them with some veggies and tomato sauce. You can find a wide variety of canned beans that are just cooked beans in a can. Also, once you get used to cooking grains they aren't that hard even for a bad cook like me.
Nope.Ive done the vegan thing for years. I spend 1-2 hours per week on food. Make beans and a big salad. You don't have to prepare nuts etc. A salad does not have to be made fresh every day if you keep the greens separate. I can prep my meal for the day in about 10 minutes. Eat OMAD, at home. easy. No biohazard from meat anymore BTW.
As with other supermarket food, many of the vegan oriented foods are highly processed with lots of added chemicals, so may be a lot less healthier than some plain, easy to cook omnivore food?
I went on a strict ketogenic diet, lost 40 lbs., reversed my type 2 diabetes and significantly lowered my blood pressure.
I tried cocaine, got the same results. Methods of rebalancing your body do matter, healthiest way is whole food plant based low fat.
Do you have epilepsy? If not, I'm not sure what the point of being in dietary ketosis is.
@@hiker-uy1bi If you don’t know the purpose of being in ketosis then you shouldn’t be throwing out trolling questions.
@@JMWexperience , same diet - same results. Congratulations!
Animal products are harmfull for human health
It’s interesting that that protein amount eaten ad libitum by the vegans actually pretty much matches previous research by Gardener where they looked at multiple different kinds of diets of people, freely, chosen by the people, and they just kept finding that the protein intake was pretty consistent. They were not looking at populations that were trying to build muscle or lose weight or anything, though the participants were of different ways, so it really looked like relatively naturally humans have some kind of mechanism that limits the protein. Was a very surprising idea to me. And, of course, there’s always gonna be outliers.
Thanks. I've been on the fence regarding trying vegan, for a while, and this study got me to try.
I'm on day 4 of switching from omni to vegan. My mood has generally improved, but I am hungrier, and I'm struggling a little to eat enough protein without protein powder. Plus I'm trying to pack most of my calories into breakfast and lunch, and have a lighter dinner.
Bean salad, natto, tofu, chickpeas, almonds, mung beans, steel cut oats, frozen corn. And started taking B12 supplements.
I'm planning to monitor my ability to exercise and strength train, and make sure that maintaines or improves else I'm switching back to Omni.
Is there a particular reason why you're avoiding protein powder?
I recommend checking out some vegan bodybuilders that share what they eat
I'm really envious that you have access to natto.
I can recommend additionally to what you listed yuba, puffed tofu, lentil pasta (mixed with other pasta), risoni from legumes (mixed with rice) for protein which you haven't listed and for taste (and partly nutrition) nooch, yeast extract, dulse, fermented bean curd.
Lacto-fermentation is also a great way to get delicious flavours without much work. I like to make seitan, too. But if you avoid protein powers that might not be for you.
I would have recommended a transition with more refined foods (protein powder could be one of them). Adaption to eat more volume and especially more fiber can be rough. But you do you.
Where I'm at I can eat more than 60g of protein (smoked tofu) as a snack between meals.
Why do you think you're hungry? I was never hungry on a vegan diet. Do you eat enough kcals?
For getting a feeling for protein and kcals I started tracking (and I'm tracking currently because I like it).
Try to check out the veganfitness subreddit for some more specific suggestions if you haven't yet.
Try eating a large leafy salad at 6-7pm, I dress it with a vinegar based mixture, supposedly it helps to keep the blood sugar down. For me it keeps the hunger away until the next morning. I consume most of the calories for breakfast and lunch. Regarding the protein, I've also recently calculated how much I get and decided to add a scoop of protein powder per day - that brings me up to just below 1g/1kg of body weight. Btw - eating way more greens allowed me to lower my body weight quite a bit without experiencing the hunger issues.
You can’t use a person’s total body weight to estimate their recommended protein intake, you have to do the calculation based on their IDEAL body weight, rather than their actual body weight. So your estimation of their recommended protein intake may well have been an overestimation. And preponderance of science now appears to be pointing to protection restriction, rather than an abundance of protein, being optimal for longevity.
Excellent analysis, Thank you!
I've been vegan for 3 years now, and I have been tracking protein intake. In the beginning, one doesn't know much about plant nutrition, and 2 months is the learning period for most. After that, it is easy to get 90 to 120 gra of protein per day. Even without using protein powders. It requires a little training.
I live in the UK and I haven't eaten meat for 39 years although I occasionallyeat fish. One thing my mother taught me was to find out where to get my protein. As a result, I also learnt about iron absorption (with vitamin C), vitamin B12 ( in marmite and fortified foods) etc. I continue to be learn about diet and have much reduced my dairy intake but am careful about getting calcium. Diets high in meat, fish and dairy are so normalised here that it's easy to think a diet low in or without these maybe deficient. People in some far Eastern countries don't eat dairy & can actually smell it on our breath. I would be interested to see a video/study with calcium, muscle & calories studied.
The important thing is to eat something that works for you, the individual. Not just sustainability but also how your body reacts.
For me, Plant Based Diet (aka Vegan), heavily inspired by Mediterranean and Japanese worked wonders. For others, a low carb diet might do well.
How do you feel about self-reporting studies? The section in the Jama network piece Collection of Dietary Intake clearly outlines that there is only self-reporting occurring at the start and then once week out of each month intervals. I would be curious to see how we could improve data collection for dietary studies, because I tend to see dietary studies that are either conflict of interest or biased in their presumptions when you look at the doctors conducting the studies. That's not super surprising, people study what they are interested in, but it makes confirmation bias a constant doubt.
There are a lot of people out there that track all their food intake and exercise. Some people have done it for years. I think someone should try to gather a big group of those people together and follow them for several years. They'd probably be happy to volunteer. You could probably even get them to track smoking habits and other drug use. Seems like there's a lot of good data sitting there that isn't being used. You wouldn't have to pay for food either, only bloodwork.
Heck just make a deal with a few app company’s to let people share data. I have probably 6 years of data on myfitnesspal coving 99% of everything I’ve eaten. I’d be more than happy to share it along with my daily weigh in, workouts, etc…
@@Dram1984 You would need those dedicated users though. I was only dedicated on the days i was dedicated on, and I no longer track anything. That's why you can't just buy the data from myfitnesspal for example. You would need people who actually cared about quality science.
Did the omni participants eat pasture raised or factory farmed animals?
Strange that lean body mass and body fat percentage weren’t measured, just the useless metric of BMI.
I do omnivore but I do things to reduce my risk of heart disease, such as daily berberine supplementation, and long fasting every month. I also eat mostly plants and nuts, and avoid high mercury meats
thanks for giving out this info, helps so much in this confusing space.
You are my favorite nutrition expert but this study is pretty good. Randomized with identical twins and controlled food. I ❤️ you but you top it if you can …LOL
This had all the Gardner alchemy 🤔
Get Gardner on to discuss this please.
He is a great guest.
I'm not necessarily a vegan, but I never desire meat or dairy. Beans are the only food that makes me feel full.
You were so blessed to not having been mentally programmed! I also disliked meat, dairy and eggs as a toddler, but was "trained" to "like" these foods.....)My favorites beans now are instant pot chickpeas & veggie stew, chickpea & minced root veggie salad, vegan chili, and 2 minute quick white beans & kale with onion and citrus.
@@ctheforestthroughthetrees3413....wow, my favorite is also chickpeas/vegetables cooked in an instapot! I have some chickpeas soaking right now. 👍
For the life of me I don’t get why they would spend so much money on one of these studies but only measure ldl and not apob. The values of ldl were in the normal range which is where there is grater discordance between the two markers.
I’m 65 went #wfpb 4 years ago for health .. ldlc dropped from 190 to 80 .. I lost 70lb but the 190 was measured back 8n 2014 before I got temporarily fat. I run 6mi/day .. never give protein a second thought. All biomarkers improved from 2014 I have no idea what protein deficiency manifests as .. I guess I’ll know it when I see/feel it.
@NutritionMadeSimple, it's worth pointing out that the vegan group did NOT lose any weight in the first 4 weeks - weight was virtually identical in the 2 groups at the end of 4 weeks (71.1 kg ± 2.8 vegan, 71.3 kg ± 2.7 omni) and not statistically significant from baseline (70.9 kg vegan, 71.7 omni) - yet the vegans had lower LDL (91.3 vs 122.4), triglycerides (99.2 vs 115.1), and insulin (11.4 vs 14.7) despite NO weight loss. It was only after the subjects had to provide their own food that the vegan group lost a little weight (69.5 kg vegans vs 71.7 kg omni) - and yet their LDL went UP to 95.5 when they lost those extra 3 lbs. So clearly the improvement in LDL can't be attributed to weight loss, when their LDL went down *more* when they lost no weight, and then went back UP as they lost weight. Likely the reason they lost weight AND had worse LDL during the 2nd half of the study was because they did not have the training and experience in preparing truly healthy, balanced, high-protein vegan meals.
Great topic. ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️
How can they not check if the loss is fat or muscle mass? For me vegan works every time good at the beginning, but then after month not more, I loss a lot of muscle and got other health issues, omnivores with not much diary was way better for me.
What about c-reactive , liver and kidneys markers , blood profiles , PSA ??
Hey Gil,
This is only a change for two months on their diet. Can you have predictions on long term effect from these findings?
not from this study in isolation
居然能找到22個雙胞胎 這篇論文太有說服力了 感謝你分享！！
On the aging impact: I'm 69 yo and have been WFPB (a little fish) for 10 years. My Levine PhenoAge is consistently in low to mid 50s. BMI hovers around 25. Exercise moderately daily. This age calculator is weighted heavily on red cell distribution width (RDW on your CBC) and hsCRP (broad inflammatory marker) to a lesser degree. Diagnosed with CVD about 11 yo, so not all is good, but my lipid markers radically changed for the better when I changed food intake, Trigs from around 200 to consistently around 80 for example. Last ApoB was 67, not ideal (
Fish is dirty, just like our oceans.
Brilliant study. I just wish it could have been longer. Hopefully this will lead to more. I really admire Dr Gardner and your channel. Might there be a chance of an interview with him about this?
Dr. Gardner is a hoot! Although I’m an omnivore, when he talks (with so much excitement), I’m almost ready to switch vegan. His excitement is so infectious. I’ll probably get there. I just need to cook more lentils on a regular basis.
Cool study! I wish they compared athletic/cognitive performance/productivity
It was never stated how many, if any , of these participants were already vegan.
My point is, regarding satisfaction with the diets, if all the participants were already eating an omnivore diet, then it was no big change, if any, to those who ate the omnivore diet during the trial. Whereas, for the participants who had to eat a vegan diet, it would have been a huge difference.
I get the reason for choosing twins for this trial. But if you want to test the pros and cons of different diets, especially a vegan diet; pick participants who are already living on a vegan diet by choice and beliefs. Not omnivores who are offered free food, albeit vegan, for a month.
I've been vegan for some time now but I got there over the course of many years, starting as a pescatarian, becoming a vegetarian after several years, and then eventually becoming vegan after several years as a vegetarian. I supplement with Vitamin D3, K2, and calcium in addition to B12. Also I use a pea/hemp/rice protein powder in shakes both in the morning and evening to make sure I get enough protein.
Have you considered the possibility that many of the benefits of the vegan diet come from lower protein?
Have you ever heard of Garth Davis and his book Proteinaholic?
@@lowbarbillcraig3689 I have not heard of Garth Davis, but I get roughly 1/3 of my protein from my plant protein shakes, without them I wouldn't even be hitting the RDA for protein. And even with them I'm probably a hair shy of what Dr. Stuart Phillips recommended when he came on to talk with Gil: th-cam.com/video/I2uejPpWk3c/w-d-xo.htmlfeature=shared
Also I do a 24 hour fast once a week, meaning for the two days over which the fast spans I'm getting less than the RDA. So I don't think I would qualify as a "proteinaholic" haha
@@lowbarbillcraig3689 While many gym bros advocate for 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per body weight. In reality, it should be 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per lean body mass aka muscle mass for maintenance and healing.
Also, going too low on protein will destroy your bone strength and bone density. So protein is important, not for looking jacked but because bone strength and density are important as you grow older in order to reduce fractures.
So do not go too low protein. Eat your legumes and lentils and like it!
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8599066/
I saw some information a while back that one of the reasons that LDL goes down on a plant based diet is due to plant sterols, and there is disagreement whether sterols may damage blood vessels when they build up in the blood (especially for those who have a condition that places them at risk with plant sterols).
I grew up in India as a lacto-vegetarian (and I don’t like the taste of meat or anything that tastes like meat). I gave up dairy about 8-9 years ago (It was very hard to give up cheese). When I visit India, I have no satisfaction issues when eating outside. I live in Taiwan and although a significant portion of Taiwanese population is vegetarian, and vegan options are available at most restaurants, I still have satisfaction issue when eating outside as these options are limited and often are not to your liking. I have lived in many countries and India is the most convenient and satisfying if you are a vegetarian or vegan. Even omnivores from other cultures are satisfied eating vegetarian food in India. Anthony Bourdain said that, in India, he never missed eating meat.
Should have kept the caloric intakes consistent with baseline and across arms. Also 2 months not adequate time. Should have been 4 or 6 months.
Eat more beans/tofu/Tempeh to get protein over 100g. Its super easy, just buy those things in bulk at the grocery store and use them (even easier is just have 2 scoops of pea/rice/hemp/soy protein in a smoothie in the morning or something).
However, only focusing on diet and nutrition is separating out some of the most important aspects to a vegan (lifestyle) diet. Not supporting the breeding, torture from birth, abuse, rape, family separation, and ultimately slaughter of very sentient innocent animals is one of the most "satisfying" things that comes from changing your diet. As well as not contributing to , for example, deadzones (extinction of populations of wild animals) of large areas of the globe due to insanely large amounts of cow fecus run off, just to name a single large environmental impact.
Its just COMPLETELY unnecessary to support this industry. The ONLY thing someone can rationally argue in favor of eating animal products is the idea that "it tastes good" , which will very very shortly (less than a year) dissipate from your memory, once you find the right restaurants and learn to cook really good vegan food yourself.
You mention in passing the role weight loss plays in the levels of these biological markers. Are there studies on nutritional effects specifically ruling out weight changes? (I've already reduced my weight as much as is feasible.)
One factor not accounted for is that some people may respond better to a vegan diet, and others respond better to an omnivore diet (perhaps based on what their ancestors' diet was). Looking at the difference in response between each set of twins might have revealed this, instead of hiding it by just looking at the group as a whole.
Also, calling diets "vegan" and "omnivore" still allow for the inclusion of foods that aren't the most healthy. For example: highly processed foods, vegetable oils, conventional meat/dairy (as opposed to grassfed), non organic food, and microwaving foods (blood results have shown this has a negative effect).
Could someone eat only Oreos and still be vegan?
Yes
Very interesting again, thank you!
Can you try to interview Dr. Michael Greger?
Odd that such a small trial group for such and important topic was excepted to hadle it self after a month. Also that it was only 2 month. Who sponsored this?
One should also expect it to last at least a quarter .
Also was there any info on what type of died they eat before?
To make it less dirty one would expect that they had twin couples with different pre diets.
Like this.
Group 1: both twins ate omino before and
1/4 both switch to vegan 1/4 both switched to Omni 1/4 one switched to vegan 1/4 one kept Omni
And group 2-4 should had similar cross correlation
Ideally then they should go back to their pre study diet for 3 month and then do same test but reverse
Only then you have more clean cross correlated data to analyze
About the differences observed in insulin reduction on the vegan group, could it be related to the reduction in saturated fat? My understanding is that saturated fat induces insulin resistance in muscle cells and that could explain why the amount of insulin needed in the vegan group was lower.
great video as always, hugs and blessings from Argentina
I imagine it has to do more with the greater weight loss in the vegan group.
The combination of fat and carbs increases blood sugar the most, more than carbs alone. If you remove the fat (like a vegan diet) or the carbs (keto) you’ll see improvements in insulin resistance. However, since they were in a caloric deficit and lost weight, that is the most likely reason they improved IR.
I eat very high carb very low fat, at least 500 grams most days and less than 30 grams of fat almost every day. Many days less than 10 grams. My fasting insulin is 2.3
@@dj-fe4ck i eat very similar amounts of carbs and fat as you, alike foods, not too much animal products, i keep fat really low specially is I am cutting (carb about 200-300 while cutting) i don't Know my fasting insulin levels but i have been using a cgm this last week and my glucose average is 110 mg/DL which i find s little higher but maybe it's norman with the weight loss stressor
Saturated fat consumption is associated with insuline resistance, indeed. Your conclusion is therefore lucid. Although, I wouldn't restrict to only one factor the cause of the outcome.
On all carb from fruits and veggies the drop of insulin is explained by in the absences of fat. The insulin receptors on the cut face of the cell wall are up-taking the glucose to utilize as energy. In the presence of fat those receptors are not expressed. Fat doesn’t need receptors to cross the phospholipid cell wall. Therefore, cell can utilize fat as energy, and doesn’t want glucose for energy, as a result the cell down regulates (removes) the receptors (insulin) from the cell wall and the glucose can not get inside of the cell, the glucose keeps circulating in the blood and pancreas keeps making insulin. Look into all rice diet do cure diabetes type 2. That’s why fruits should be eaten separately. Steak should be eaten with non starchy veggies. You are welcome
-Dr.g (not vegan)
Thanks Dr. Gil, this info is interesting , the idea especially but wish the duration at least was twice as long. Also hope not to say this in inappropriate way, I see your recent videos show some significant "reverse again" looking like your residency videos, so whatever you are doing for your good health is showing ,
Excellent analysis
A month ago I switched from largely carnivore to mostly vegetarian. I eat meat a couple times a week. I eat a lot of eggs and dairy, especially low fat cottage cheese and protein powders. But I dropped about 7-8 lbs in a month. I was losing only 2-3 before.
more its not necessarily better, like in this study once the specific body weight loss composition get out we saw they lost muscle which is not good
@@pasta1998 I use the scale at Equinox, the $12,000 one that measures body comp. I had a small dip on muscle mass from 103 to 101.5 but I'm pretty faithful to eat protein and it's coming back up. So it isn't muscle loss
Appreciate the more balanced summary of the study on this channel, compared to most of the media gushing over how vegan outperformed omnivore. The lack of control on kcal explains both the weight loss and blood markers, and the lack of satisfaction on the diet also (at least partially) explains the lower consumption of kcal. So not surprising, and not at all the home run that most of the media stories are running with. Also very much appreciate you pointing out the low B12 and low protein in these diets; if this was planned more than an 8-week study, I'm sure the IRB would have shut it down for safety reasons!
Odd that they didn't track changes in muscle mass.
Has there ever been an study comparing omnivore to herbivore, matching for macros intake? I know that was done matching for protein, but matching for everything? Does the source matter?
If the plant based diet makes people spontaneously eat a LOT less, how do you match macros?
Matching for macros makes the comparison completely meaningless IMHO.
this may be the closest you'll find
www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-compares-low-fat-plant-based-diet-low-carb-animal-based-diet
The participants, 11 men and nine women, received either a plant-based, low-fat diet or an animal-based, low-carbohydrate diet for two weeks, immediately followed by two weeks on the alternate diet.
I bet the adherence would be higher if they actually thaught the participants how animal products are made
👍🤣
yes and the env. devastation
The general public knows how animal products are made, don't kid yourself. It's just a reality we choose not to obsess about. Pretty much anything humans design/create including all that ESG power kills animals. Nothing will stop the development of the planet short of a biological, nuclear, or misc extinction event. Humans will spread out to space, then to the moon, then to the habitable planets, then beyond. It's unfortunate but animals probably don't have a nice role in that future.
@@spiral-mit’s not always that simple
Did they lock them both in the same room to account for other lifestyle factors, environmental factors, and other things that would possibly ruin this study?
No, thats why they chose twins
@@m_m991 suppose that's the closest you can get but still flawed
@@m_m991 identical twins does not mean they have similar lifestyles, etc. They could also have very different health problems, gut biomes,etc.
If you want to eat whole, minimally processed foods, whether vegan or omnivore, that's going to require you to prepare your own food with either diet. So I don't see how choosing a vegan diet is more time consuming. You would think the twins who ate vegan who want to continue because of the health benefits they experienced. However, no mention was made of their ages or health going into this study. As they get older and continue on SAD, they might rethink that. For me, I'm vegetarian because I choose not to have animals slaughtered to provide food for my benefit. I would love to be 100 percent plant-based but I'm not there yet.
While I agree it is important to pick a diet that you gravitate toward and seems easy for you, I don't think it's the only way to create lasting change. I am pretty much the last person who I ever thought would be vegan since I like pizza and meat and always stayed away from most vegetables. However, after reading about the realities of factory farming and lies like "humane meat" and "cage free eggs," making the change was the easiest thing in the world for me because I had a higher reason to do so. Five years later, I am happily vegan for life, and my body is thanking me for it as well. .
a 200 kcal per day difference would result in about a 3.2 kg difference in fat loss. That's likely close to a 5% loss in bodyweight just do to the caloric difference and that alone can lower insulin, blood pressure and LDL and triglycerides very significantly. I've seen .5% A1C drop in 8 weeks with a 5% loss in bodyweight.
So it's not about meat or no meat
the study was ad libitum. The study participants could eat all they want. They just naturally lost weight on the vegan diet.
Thats not how hormones work. You are pointing out the caloric intake without taking into account the caloric expenditure which is different for each diet and person because hormones are the ones which control for it. You can eat 1000 calories a day but if you have high insulin and low leptin you will store almost all of it and be ravenously hungry.
@@amor_universal they also reported lower dietary satisfaction, which likely contributed, and means they won't be continuing. As far as calorie difference, 56 days times 200 kcal = 11200 kcal, which is more like 1.4 kg, which is pretty much the difference in weight loss
@@defeqel6537 people are notoriously un-conscious of factors influencing their minds. It takes some guts and courage to be vegan and do things which the majority of people around you do not do, but many people consider that a whole foods plant-based diet is incredibly satisfying. I have been very satisfied for the last 11 years and I would never go back to being omnivore.
Interesting that the people on the plant based diet reported feeling hungry, they were consuming 200 less calories than the omnis and 400 less than their baseline and losing weight, so that makes complete sense. One thing you need to learn when you eat a plant based diet, especially a WFPB diet, is to not feel guilty about your hunger and eat something. If you don't want to cook that means something like a handful of nuts or an apple.
Gil, how did they measure biological age?
where is in the study about biological age or telomeres? I can't find it there
its covered in the video that this wasn't published yet, will come out later
@@NutritionMadeSimple oh, I see. Thank you.
They talked about it in the Netflix documentary
hey! Thanks for your work ! Are you going to review the new greger's book 'how not to age' ? It seems great but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!
There are also arguments that the RDA for protein is actually OVER-stated ... for one thing, since the RDA has to apply for everyone, they have to set it at a rate which fits those with the very lowest absorption of protein. So in other words, the vast majority, not being at that low end for absorption, will need less protein than the stated RDA. By an often considerable amount. It's REALLY easy to get enough protein.
@@Beatrice-nx5ld Can't really agree with you there. Plant proteins are only slightly less absorbed, 10% or so ... since one needs to consume a higher quantity of food as a vegan anyway, plant foods being less calorie dense, it takes care of itself. With older people, loss of muscle mass can be a concern ... but adding protein does NOT add muscle. Exercise does.