AHA Journals, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Heart Disease, Nutrition, Vegetarians / 22.08.2019
For Cardiovascular Health Plant Food Quality Matters
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_51018" align="alignleft" width="173"] Dr. Baden[/caption]
Megu Baden, MD, PhD
Department of Nutrition
Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Boston, MA02115
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Would you give an example of healthful vs non-healthful plantbased diet?
Response: Plant-based diets are recommended for health and recently also for their environmental benefits. However, most previous studies defined it as either vegetarian or non-vegetarian, and importantly, without differentiation for the quality of plant foods. As you know, not all plant foods are equally good to our health.
Therefore, to capture the quality of plant-based diets, we established overall, healthful and unhealthful plant-based diet indices. A higher score on the overall plant based diet index indicates greater intake of all types of plant foods and less of animal foods. A higher score on the healthful plant based diet index indicates greater intake of only healthy plant foods (whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, vegetable oils, tea/coffee), and less of less healthy plant foods (fruit juices, refined grains, potatoes, sugar-sweetened beverages, sweets/desserts) and animal foods. A higher score on the unhealthful plant based diet index indicates greater intake of only less healthy plant foods, and less of healthy plant foods and animal foods.
In this study, we used these plant-based diet indices and investigated the associations between 12-year changes in plant-based diet quality and subsequent total and cause-specific mortality in two large US cohorts.
Dr. Baden[/caption]
Megu Baden, MD, PhD
Department of Nutrition
Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Boston, MA02115
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Would you give an example of healthful vs non-healthful plantbased diet?
Response: Plant-based diets are recommended for health and recently also for their environmental benefits. However, most previous studies defined it as either vegetarian or non-vegetarian, and importantly, without differentiation for the quality of plant foods. As you know, not all plant foods are equally good to our health.
Therefore, to capture the quality of plant-based diets, we established overall, healthful and unhealthful plant-based diet indices. A higher score on the overall plant based diet index indicates greater intake of all types of plant foods and less of animal foods. A higher score on the healthful plant based diet index indicates greater intake of only healthy plant foods (whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, vegetable oils, tea/coffee), and less of less healthy plant foods (fruit juices, refined grains, potatoes, sugar-sweetened beverages, sweets/desserts) and animal foods. A higher score on the unhealthful plant based diet index indicates greater intake of only less healthy plant foods, and less of healthy plant foods and animal foods.
In this study, we used these plant-based diet indices and investigated the associations between 12-year changes in plant-based diet quality and subsequent total and cause-specific mortality in two large US cohorts.
Leighton Ku, PhD, MPH
Professor, Dept. of Health Policy and Management
Director, Center for Health Policy Research
Milken Institute School of Public Health
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: In this study, we examined how requirements that low-income adults work in order to keep their food assistance benefits (SNAP, formerly called food stamps) affects the number of people receiving benefits. Briefly, we found, based on analyses of data from 2,410 counties from 2013 to 2017, that soon after work requirements are introduced, more than a third of affected participants lose their food assistance. This meant that about 600,000 poor adults lost food assistance very quickly.
This is important for two reasons:
(1) Work requirements create greater hardship, including food insecurity and increased risk of health problems, when poor people lose their nutrition benefits.
(2) The Trump Administration is trying to broaden this policy, expanding it further in SNAP, but also applying work requirements to Medicaid (for health insurance) and public housing benefits. This is a massive effort at social experimentation that will cause tremendous harm.
And the sad part is that we already know, from other research, that these work requirement programs do not actually help people get jobs, keep them or to become more self-sufficient. This is because the work requirements do not address the real needs of low-income unemployed people, to learn how to get better job skills or to have supports, such as child care, transportation or health insurance, that let them keep working.
