“... Vegans have the
lowest incidence
of hypertension as
compared to those
taking vegetarian or
non-vegetarian diet...”
were kept stable. Primary endpoint was the degree
of decrease in HBA1c, which is the average blood
glucose level in a 3-month period in each patient.
HBA1c of less than 6 represents good control, 6-8
represents moderate to poor control and more than 8
represents very poor control.
At the end of 22 weeks, HBA1C level fell 1.23 points
in vegan arm and 0.38 points in ADA group (p=0.01).
The p value here represents the fact that the chance
that this diff erence in HBA1c between the two groups
could have been merely by chance is only one in
- Average weight loss was 6.48 kg in vegan arm
and 3.08 kg in ADA recommended omnivorous diet
arm. Bad cholesterol (LDL) lowered on an average
22.6 mg/dl in vegan arm (21.2%) and 10.7 mg/dl
(9.3%) in omnivorous diet arm. It was also noticed that
requirement of medications dropped in vegan arm. The
good eff ects of a well planned vegan food in addition
to exercise and medications continued to provide the
same benefi ts even at 74 weeks.
The EPIC-Oxford study published by Appleby in 2002
on 11,004 British people showed that Vegans have
the lowest incidence of hypertension as compared
to those taking vegetarian or non-vegetarian diet(6).
Hypertension was present in 5.8% of Vegan men and
7.7% of vegan women as compared to 15% of non-
vegetarian men and 12.1% of non-vegetarian women.
The above studies provide convincing evidence that
eating a well-planned plant based diet would result in
decreased incidence and better control of diabetes
and systemic hypertension. Our endeavor is to take
this message to as many people as possible and
signifi cantly improve the outcome of these two deadly
lifestyle diseases that are at the moment addressed
principally only by medications.
References:
- The New Indian Express. Dated 6 Apr 2017.
- Gupta R et al.RUHS J Health Sci 2017;2(1):40-46.
- Snowdon DA et al. Am J Public Health
1985;75:507-512. - Tonstad S et al. Diabetes care 2009;32:791-796.
- Barnard ND et al. Diabetes Care 1994;17:1469-
1472. - Appleby PN et al. Public Health Nutr 2002;5:645-
654.
Dr. Anand Bharathan is a Hepato Biliary
Pancreatic and Liver Transplant Surgeon who
works between Sri Ramakrishna Hospital,
Coimbatore and Manipal Hospital, Bangalore.
Dr. Gayathri Anand is a general practitioner
with a great interest in promoting the health
benefi ts of plant-based nutrition.