One of the largest ever scientific reviews looking at associations between food and beverages and the risk of diet-related disease has reinforced the fundamental nutrition keys and dietary patterns for good health.
Diet plays a big part in health. As the typical western diet moved to more overly refined and energy dense foods, rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes mirrored this change. Among all the competing voices on what foods and nutrients are best and worst for our health, there is some common ground that all camps can agree on. The need to eat more minimally processed plant-based foods, and less processed foods high in sugar is one such theme.
Taking a step back from the recent trend to demonise particular foods and nutrients as the cause of all of our health ills, a major scientific review has taken things back to basics to reinforce where the best health gains are to be found with diet.
A no small undertaking, the review looked at the diet and chronic disease links from 304 meta-analyses and systematic reviews published in the last 63 years. Type 2 diabetes, overweight and obesity, cancer and cardiovascular disease together accounted for most of the chronic disease links found.
The key dietary patterns
As for dietary patterns, the findings showed that plant-based foods were more protective against the risk of developing chronic disease compared to animal-based foods. Amongst plant foods, grain-based foods seemed to have a small edge over fruits and vegetables. So much for the anti-grain sentiment that is popular at the moment.
For animal-based foods, dairy products overall were considered neutral on health and fish was considered protective. Red and processed meats were linked to a higher disease risk.
For tea lovers, the research confirmed this popular drink as being the most protective against disease risk. On the other end of the spectrum, to no one’s surprise, soft drinks had few redeeming health benefits.
What it all means
The findings from this major review are close to a carbon copy of existing dietary guidelines that have changed little over decades. Eat more plant-based foods than animal foods, choose wholegrains over refined grains, limit red and processed meat and choose other beverages in preference to soft drink. Such recommendations may not get media attention, or help sell books in numbers like the latest fad diet, but they are the cornerstone of long-term health.
Graeme says
October 19, 2017 at 7:16 pmYou know what else hasn’t changed in the last couple of decades…findings like this not getting media attention, or helping sell books in numbers like the latest fad diet.
Thanks for the summary Tim.
Troy says
August 24, 2015 at 6:54 pmThanks Tim, this was a solid brief little summary of the study. Much appreciated.
On the note of processed and industrial foods especially as they relate to sugar, is there any significant data to suggest otherwise that the Australian Paradox isn’t the case? My understanding is there has been some editing to the original article since it’s inception but that there’s also been no evidence to refute it with the exception of the flaws in the study itself (from what I could see, the primary one is actually trying to measure how much sugar we eat in foods that have it added and also how poor data is when it comes to self-reporting in things related to food).
Your thoughts on this, as always, would really be appreciated.
Tim Crowe says
August 24, 2015 at 7:10 pmThis was published only last month showing the same trends and also agrees with global data published last year. It isn’t really matter of proving either side ‘right or wrong’ as we can all agree we should eat less added sugar, but it is simplistic to blame it as the smoking gun for obesity problems http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26130298
Troy says
August 25, 2015 at 10:51 amThanks Tim.
Agreed with the idea that we’re constantly too quick to point the finger at a single macronutrient and not take things in their appropriate context when it comes to an issue as complex as obesity. Also thanks for the link to that paper.
I find that many friends and to a lesser extent a few colleagues will ask me about sugar (and it’s become especially more palpable since That Sugar Film went public). My answers in response are that the truth is often found somewhere in the middle of the extremes.