How does WFPB impact health

One person is hospitalised due to a heart attack every nine minutes. A low-fat plant-based diet is the only eating pattern, combined with regular exercise and a healthful overall lifestyle that has been scientifically demonstrated to prevent, delay, and even reverse heart disease and other cardiovascular events.

Diabetes is the fastest growing chronic condition in Australia and New Zealand. Lifestyle changes can prevent or delay type 2 diabetes in up to 58% of people. A whole food plant-based eating pattern is highly effective in both the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes, including lasting remission.

The standard Western diet appears to play a major role in the development and progression of breast cancer. Breast cancer is less prevalent in countries where simple plant-based foods are staples. A whole food plant-based diet reduces exposure to high levels of potentially cancer-promoting hormones.

Lifestyle factors, especially the standard Western diet, appear to play a major role in the development of colorectal, or bowel, cancer. A whole food plant-based diet supports a healthy gut microbiome and reduces the risk of inflammation occurring in the colonic environment.

Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer for men in Australia and New Zealand. Like breast cancer in women, one important contributor to its development is the effect of the Western diet on hormone levels. Rates are substantially lower in men in countries that do not traditionally consume the standard Western diet.

Nearly 2 in 3 adults in Australia and New Zealand are considered overweight or obese. The worldwide ‘obesity epidemic’ is the greatest driver of the current epidemic of chronic disease. Transitioning to a whole food plant-based diet diet results in rapid, sustainable, and healthy weight loss.

Whole food plant-based diets have been shown to be highly effective in both prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, responsible for up to two-thirds of chronic kidney disease cases. Prevention, early detection and treatment are especially important.

Good nutrition, sleep, relaxation, exercise and connection with others are key in supporting good mental health. The gut-brain connection is profound and continues to be explored in research. Our bodies function best on a nutrient-rich, high fibre diet, abundant in fruits, vegetables, wholegrains, legumes and some nuts and seeds.

A whole food plant-based diet provides an abundance of dietary fibre. Eating a wide variety of whole foods promotes diversity of the gut microbiota, with high abundances of known beneficial bacteria. Changes are notable within just two weeks of changing diet.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, inflammatory autoimmune condition. Although its cause is not completely understood, dietary intake can have a significant influence on levels of inflammation in the body. Western diets, especially those high in red and processed meat and dairy, increase inflammation.

A whole food plant-based diet is effective for treating PCOS because it has a broad range of effects that target the underlying hormonal and metabolic abnormalities of the condition, it may cause weight loss, reduce insulin resistance and improves beta cell function.

The most common conditions causing chronic pain include arthritis and back pain. A whole food plant-based diet contains many anti-inflammatory phytonutrients including antioxidants and has been shown to reduce pain symptoms in arthritis and lower back pain.

Following a whole food plant-based diet is a natural, low-risk intervention to help reduce acne. More recent research shows that acne patients have significant differences in the composition of the gut microbiome and a Western style diet is likely to exacerbate an imbalanced microbiome.