New guidelines are being promoted for medical doctors concerning their nutritional advice for patients managing chronic illnesses like diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. With some areas of the country now showing averages of 39% of the population suffering from obesity and its associated diseases there is even more pressure for medical doctors to actively discuss and monitor diet as a key component in managing the health of their patients. I believe that many health providers find the discussion of diet to be a very difficult one to have with patients and one which many patients are offended by when it is brought up. Our society has a tremendous disconnect between what our illnesses are caused by and who has the power to control those causes. The abstract from the NIH includes a number of studies that show the benefit of plant based diets, even in the absence of increase exercise, on reducing blood pressure, blood glucose, and coronary artery disease. It has long been promoted by the meat and dairy industries that the path to health and strength comes through milk and animal protein. This has been a phenomenal advertising campaign that stands in contrast to the listed causes of the chronic diseases plaguing our modern American society. Thankfully more funding for studies is being granted to look at the links between plant-based diets and adult onset illnesses like type two diabetes. While the recommendations for plant food in these studies always include a list of potential nutritional deficiencies these only serve to worry the public about theoretical risks of not eating enough protein, Vitamin B, and Iron. While this has long been the warning cry of the meat and dairy industries, there is no lack of either protein or iron in plant foods and with little effort Vitamin B can be added through a supplement. Remember that enormous rates of osteo-arthritis and Vitamin D deficiency are actually found in our society despite the world’s leading consumption of animal protein. Our rates of diet induced illness seem to point towards nutritional deficiencies in the general American diet rather than the plant-based diets of health conscious individuals.
Please take the time to read the NIH Article: Nutritional Update for Physicians: Plant-Based Diets. I also recommend the response letter from Dr. John McDougall, Plant-Based Diets Are Not Nutritionally Deficient, who runs his own plant based treatment center in Sonoma County.
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