Healthy plant-based diets may lower death risk in people with cardiometabolic disorders

ByErik Swain

Fact checked byRichard Smith

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Key takeaways:

People with cardiometabolic disorders who ate an overall and healthy plant-based diet had reduced risk for all-cause and heart-related mortality.
The effect was greatest in people who ate a healthy plant-based diet.

CHICAGO — Among people with cardiometabolic disorders, those who ate a healthy plant-based diet had reduced risk for all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, researchers reported at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Session.

“Growing evidence has suggested that greater adherence to overall and healthful plant-based diets are associated with lower risk of several chronic diseases (eg, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease) and mortality, while an unhealthful plant-based diet is associated with higher risks of these health outcomes among general healthy populations,” Zhangling Chen, MD, PhD, cardiologist and professor at the department of cardiovascular medicine, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University in Changsha, China, told Healio. “Due to the altered metabolism of nutrients, dyslipidemia, prothrombotic profile and more frail status in individuals living with cardiometabolic disorders, who have an elevated risk of premature death, whether these associations observed in generally healthy populations could be extrapolated to individuals living with cardiometabolic disorders has yet to be elucidated.”

Graphical depiction of source quote presented in the article

Chen, Shenghua Zhou, MD, PhD, cardiologist and professor at the department of cardiovascular medicine, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, and colleagues analyzed 78,151 participants with cardiometabolic disorders such as obesity, diabetes and CVD who participated in the UK Biobank from 2006 to 2022, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2019 or the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey from 2008 to 2019.

Shenghua Zhou

At baseline, all participants provided diet information that was used to calculate overall, healthful and unhealthful plant-based diet indices.

Higher overall plant-based diet index score was associated with lower risk for all-cause, CVD and other mortality, the researchers found.

Compared with those in the lowest quartile, those in the highest quartile of overall plant-based diet index score had reduced risk for all-cause mortality (HR = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.81-0.9), CVD mortality (HR = 0.82; 95% CI, 0.72-0.93) and other mortality (HR = 0.82; 95% CI, 0.69-0.97), according to the researchers.

Compared with people in the lowest quartile of healthful plant-based diet index score, those in the highest quartile had 19% to 29% reduced risk for all-cause, CVD, cancer or other mortality, whereas compared with people in the lowest quartile of unhealthful plant-based diet index score, those in the highest quartile had 28% to 43% elevated risk for all-cause, CVD, cancer or other mortality, Chen, Zhou and colleagues found.

“Our results may inform diet counseling by providing evidence-based recommendations for people with cardiometabolic disorders and guiding personalized interventions to improve dietary habits and cardiometabolic health,” Chen told Healio. “For example, clinicians, including doctors and other health care professionals, and dietitians may suggest higher adherence to healthful plant-based diet for people with cardiometabolic disorders to improve cardiometabolic health. A more healthful plant-based diet does not require a radical change in diet or a total elimination of meat or animal products, but instead can be achieved in various ways, such as lower consumption of red and processed meat, refined grains and sugar-sweetened beverages, and higher consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, tea and coffee, increasing the potential for population-wide health recommendations.”

Limitations of the study include that diet information was only taken at baseline and the results do not account for changes in diet during the study period, that the study population only included American, British and Chinese individuals.

Zhou, Chen, and colleagues are also trying to conduct a randomized controlled trial to confirm the beneficial effect of a healthy plant-based diet among individuals with cardiometabolic disorders, Chen said.