On my 80th birthday, I was dealing with a host of medical problems. I had been a Type 2 diabetic for over 20 years, and I’d had high blood pressure since I was 35. One doctor called it “resistant” high blood pressure, because the standard medicines failed to bring it down. It took five medications at full doses to keep my blood pressure under control. I think it’s hereditary; my father died at 31 from repeated small strokes because they couldn’t control his blood pressure, and both his sisters were diagnosed with high blood pressure, one of them when she was in her teens. I counted myself lucky that there were medications to help me avoid suffering my father’s fate.

On top of high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes, I had high triglycerides and high cholesterol. And now, on my 80th, I was dealing with the latest bad news from my doctor: I had chronic kidney disease, stage 3C.

Surprising Improvements

Much to my surprise, after only a couple of months of eating WFPB dinners—only dinners!—my A1C improved enough that my doctor started stepping down my diabetes medication, and before long, without fanfare, I was off of all of it.

I watched the Forks Over Knives documentary and felt my objections to eating vegetables weakening. Then, while browsing my health care provider’s website to see what it had to say about my latest diagnosis, chronic kidney disease, I saw that the advice for CKD patients was to avoid animal protein. Here was my medical team saying pretty much exactly what the documentary said. That was it. I was on board. I said goodbye to my beloved bacon-and-egg breakfasts. My daughter happily started making us both steel-cut oats every morning.

My health improvements accelerated. My cholesterol dropped enough that my doctor was able to take me off statins. My limp, thinning hair plumped up, and one day, while going through the motions of putting on makeup, I realized I had eyelashes again; the mascara was actually coating something. My splitting fingernails toughened up. My age spots lightened. My BMI had been in the “obese” range for decades, and I began to lose weight, with ease, at a healthy rate. My kidney numbers turned around. I began to look forward to going to the doctor, knowing my weight would be lower and my blood work would be better, not worse.

Undoing a Family History of Disease

It’s been five years since I made the switch. My A1C has been lower than my daughter’s for years now (and she’s never been diabetic). My total cholesterol is consistently 170 or lower. My kidney numbers continue to look better at each checkup.

Most amazing of all is the improvement in my blood pressure. I didn’t think anything could affect my blood pressure this much! Even my skeptical doctor commented, “Your plant-based diet is doing well for your blood pressure.” One by one, she has cautiously taken me off medications. I’m down to two, from the five I’d been taking for decades, and my blood pressure is so good that I wouldn’t be surprised if she takes me off the final two. It’s almost incredible. If only my father had known.

My lunch is often homemade soy yogurt, dressed up with raisins and orange slices. Our favorite dinners are bulgur-wheat pilaf; orange tofu; black bean tacos; bean chili; and a lot of variations on brown rice and beans. We also like to do potato bars, where we make baked potatoes and set out different toppings. For holidays, one favorite is a lentil shepherd’s pie. We use Forks Meal Planner and cookbooks by plant-based doctors.

My friends are interested in my successes, and at least two of them have started their own plant-based journeys. Now I’m 85 and in better health than I was at 45. I know I’m not immortal; something is going to take me out eventually. But eating a WFPB diet has given me the chance to enjoy good health until then. I’m so grateful.

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path. To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer.

The post It’s Never Too Late: How I Improved My Health at Age 80 with a WFPB Diet appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

The large-scale study, published in the ​​Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia, and Muscle, analyzed data from more than 85,000 women aged 60 and older over the course of two decades to determine whether the type of protein they consumed impacted their likelihood of developing frailty—a common and sometimes very dangerous condition in older adults. Frailty greatly increases the risk of infections, falls, surgical complications, and illnesses that require hospitalization. For the study, researchers defined frailty as meeting at least three of the following five criteria: fatigue, low strength, reduced aerobic capacity, five or more chronic illnesses, and weight loss of 5% or more. Food intake questionnaires provided data on the womens’ diets.

Over the course of the study, researchers recorded more than 13,000 cases of frailty and found that women who ate the most animal-based protein (red meat, poultry, fish, seafood, eggs, and dairy) experienced the highest rates of frailty, while the women who consumed the most plant-based protein (bread, cereals, pasta, nuts, beans, and legumes) experienced the lowest rates.

After adjusting for variables such as baseline body mass index, alcohol intake, and smoking status, the study found that swapping just 5% of protein intake from animal-based sources to plant-based sources could drastically reduce frailty. Researchers further discovered that the level of frailty reduction differed based on the specific type of animal protein that the plant protein replaced:

• Replacing overall animal protein reduced the risk of frailty by 38%
• Replacing dairy protein reduced the risk of frailty by 32%
• Replacing nondairy animal protein (including meat, fish, and eggs) reduced the risk of frailty by 42%

“Plant-based foods are associated with lower risks of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers,” says Vanita Rahman, MD, clinic director at Barnard Medical Center in Washington, D.C. “They are also associated with less inflammation and improved joint health. By collectively decreasing the burden of chronic disease, plant-based foods support lower rates of frailty.”

While previous research has suggested that eating more protein in general can reduce the risk of frailty, this latest study found that only plant-based protein seemed to offer protective benefits, with the authors noting that “habitual long-term intake of total protein, animal protein, and dairy protein was not associated with lower risk of frailty.”

“Although we need definitive research evidence, I suspect that the more women move towards a plant-based diet, the more improvements they can expect in their health and frailty scores,” says Rahman.

Apart from mitigating the physical symptoms of frailty during old age, a 2019 study published in Advances in Nutrition found that a plant-based diet could also slow cognitive decline in elderly adults. Researchers found that polyphenol-rich foods such as citrus, berries, nuts, and cocoa improved specific regions of cognition in the brain, particularly the frontal lobe which controls executive functioning. Eliminating animal products has also been shown to reduce cancer risk, increase your lifespan by more than a decade, and lower medication usage for older adults.

To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer. For meal-planning support, check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path.

The post Swapping Out Animal Protein for Plant Protein Reduces Frailty in Older Women by 42% appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

That number comes from new, not-yet-published research led by Walter Willett, M.D., professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, who discussed his findings at the Unite to Cure Fourth International Vatican Conference in Italy April 26–28, 2018.

“We have been doing some calculations looking at the question of how much could we reduce mortality [by] shifting toward a healthy, more plant-based diet, not necessarily totally vegan, and our estimate is about a third of deaths could be prevented,” Willett said during a panel discussion on plant-based eating.

“That’s not even talking about physical activity or not smoking, and that’s all deaths, not just cancer deaths,” Willett said. “That’s probably an underestimate as well as that doesn’t take into account the fact that obesity is important and we controlled for obesity.”

Watch the entire panel discussion, which also features Dr. Neal Barnard, founder of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine; Dr. Francesco Branca of the World Health Organization; Dr. Patrick Brown of Impossible Foods and Stanford University School of Medicine; and Dr. David Jenkins of the University of Toronto.

The post Harvard Study: Plant-Based Diet Could Reduce Early Deaths by One-Third appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

For Longevity

Beans and other legumes (lentils, peas, etc.) are the most important dietary predictor of longevity in people of different ethnicities. Among 785 older adults in several countries, each 20-gram increase in daily legume intake resulted in a 7 to 8 percent lower risk of dying during the study period. No other food groups consistently predicted survival. Similarly, legumes are a dietary staple in the “Blue Zones,” areas of the world known for longevity.

To Reduce Your Risk of Heart Disease

Eating legumes four times a week or more, compared to less than once a week, confers a 22 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease. Research also shows that legumes lower blood pressure and that a single serving of beans a day can reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol by 5 percent!

To Protect Against Diabetes

Eating legumes helps prevent type 2 diabetes, and it improves blood sugar control in people who already have diabetes.

For Weight Management

Legume-based meals have been shown to be more satiating than animal-based meals, probably due to the combination of fiber, protein, and slowly digested carbohydrate. Regular legume eaters have healthier body weights than those who do not eat these foods regularly, and legumes can help people lose excess weight.

For Essential Nutrients

Legumes are rich in protein, fiber, iron, antioxidants, and other essential nutrients. What about lectins? Well, most of these are destroyed by cooking, and those that remain may have important anticancer benefits.

Plus, beans are delicious, versatile, and inexpensive!

What about gas and bloating? If you’re not used to eating legumes, start slow, and try lentils, split peas, and smaller beans first. Your body will adjust gradually. Also try rinsing canned beans well, cooking them thoroughly, sprouting beans before cooking, soaking beans longer or doing double soaks, adding a strip of kombu seaweed, and eating fermented legumes such as tempeh.

The post 5 Reasons Why We Should Eat More Beans appeared first on Forks Over Knives.