Home HEALTH Vegan diets ‘could help people lose nearly a pound a week’ – Daily Mail

Vegan diets ‘could help people lose nearly a pound a week’ – Daily Mail

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Vegan diets ‘could help people lose nearly a pound a week’ – Bioreports Mail

Vegan diets could help people lose nearly a pound a week and slash their diabetes risk ‘by boosting good gut bacteria’

  • Balanced vegan diets can limit calorie intake and provide people with more fibre
  • One expert said the findings could shed new light on carbohydrates
  • Tests showed levels of ‘good bacteria’ were higher after people ate vegan diets 

By Sam Blanchard Senior Health Reporter For Mailonline

Published: | Updated: 19:50 EDT, 16 September 2019

Going on a vegan diet could help people lose almost a pound a week and slash their risk of diabetes, according to a study.

People who switched to a plant-based diet high in carbohydrates lost an average of 13lbs (5.8kg) in the space of just four months.

Scientists suggested changes to bacteria living in the gut could have been responsible for boosting the people’s digestive health.

And they said the diet could make their bodies more able to absorb sugar from food, reducing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Out of 148 people in a study, 73 of them had to switch to a low-fat vegan diet and they all lost weight, as well as improving their bodies’ ability to absorb sugar from their bloodstream (stock image of vegan foods)

Scientists at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington DC tested the effects of a vegan diet on a group of 148 people.

Some 73 of them had to abide by a meat- and dairy-free diet for 16 weeks and have tests to measure their weight, body fat, gut bacteria and insulin sensitivity.

The remaining 75 made no changes to their diets but had the same tests.

All the vegan participants lost weight during the study, shedding almost a stone on average, with the most weight lost 15.2lbs (6.9kg) and the least 10.3lbs (4.7kg).

Most of the weight loss was through fat burnt, and their insulin sensitivity ‘increased significantly’.

Being more sensitive to insulin means the body is more efficient at absorbing sugar from food, reducing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Experts commenting on the study said it was encouraging but thin on detail about what people actually ate and how it affected their bodies.

‘It’s true that many of the foods in a balanced vegan diet are good for us, but that doesn’t mean that all vegan diets are healthy,’ said Diabetes UK’s Emma Elvin.

VEGANISM ‘REDUCES RISK OF TYPE 2 DIABETES’

A study by Harvard University found that eating a plant-based diet reduces the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Looking at details of more than 300,000 people from nine other studies, researchers found people who stuck strictly to a plant-based diet had the lowest risk of the condition.

The die-hard vegans and vegetarians reduced their risk of diabetes by 23 per cent when compared to those who weren’t strict with themselves.

Although the research couldn’t give a definitive why for the connection, they suggested it’s because plant-based diets improve insulin sensitivity and blood pressure, reduce weight gain, and reduce internal swelling – all of which can contribute to type 2 diabetes. 

The research was published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine in July this year. 

‘Some “vegan friendly” products can contain added salt, free sugar or saturated fat; all of which we should be having less of as part of a healthy balanced diet.

‘That said, evidence to date has shown that certain foods in plant-based diets – such as fruits, vegetables and wholegrains – have been associated with reducing risk of type 2 diabetes.

‘We also know that losing weight if you’re overweight or obese can reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the future.’

In a summary of their paper published ahead of the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, the scientists also gave an overview of bacterial changes in the participants’ guts.

They found that as the people lost weight there was an increase in levels of a ‘good bacteria’ called Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and the vegans had an ‘abundance’.

F. prausnitzii is thought to boost the immune system and low levels of it may be linked to obesity and Crohn’s disease.

However, King’s College London’s Professor Tom Sanders said this study could not linked bacterial changes directly to the weight loss.

He said: ‘The diet used was a low fat vegan diet whereas typical vegan diets usually contain 30-35 percent energy from fat. The weight loss was substantial and would be expected to improve insulin sensitivity.

‘However, it is not possible to attribute these changes to change in the gut microbial flora (these are already well known to change on a vegan diet so it is not a novel finding).

‘However, it does illustrate that a calorie restricted diet high in carbohydrates (presumably unrefined) is of benefit for people with diabetes which is opposite to the misplaced public perception that high carbohydrate diets increase risk of diabetes.’

Dr Ian Johnson, from the Quadram Institute in Norwich, added: ‘What we certainly cannot infer without further research is that the changes in gut bacteria caused the weight losses or the improvements in metabolic health.

‘Without other information, simple correlations cannot prove causality.’

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