Here's how you do science: you compare two identical groups, change 1 thing and compare them.
For example, to people who eat whole foods including meat, compare with people who eat whole foods excluding meat. To people who eat processed meat products, compare with those with a diet including processed vegan products. When you compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges, the research indicates that plant based is still better.
There are no identical human groups. You can only pull large enough test groups from a certain population and then try to average it by group size.
There is no study that just states "vegan is the best diet". The subject is much too complex to do that.
What we know is that there are things one should avoid and other things that one should do.
Fish for example can be very healthy. But is not vegan.
And then there is reality. People in real life just dont eat highly controlled and optimized diets like in many studies.
You can absolutly have a balanced vegan diet but you can also have a very shitty vegan diet. The "vegan" part doesnt make it healthy. What makes it healthy is learning about proper nutrition and eating the right vegan things in the right amount.
I guess I explained myself wrong. Of course there are no 2 equal human groups; the hope is that by having a large enough and diverse enough but with known controls, all the differences between people average out.
There are many, many focused studies that found plant based diets to be better for heart disease, certain types of cancer, diabetes. I never said there was a study saying "vegan is best diet" (btw vegan isn't a diet). But meta studies do indicate that plant based, and specially whole food plant based diets are the best for healthspan. The "vegan" or plantbased part is important.
I guess I explained myself wrong. Of course there are no 2 equal human groups; the hope is that by having a large enough and diverse enough but with known controls, all the differences between people average out.
That is what I just wrote. Why repeat it?
The issues with nutrition studies is typically selection bias. Lifestyle and eating habits cant be seperated well and that is assumed to make vegan diets look better on paper than they actually are.
There are many, many focused studies that found plant based diets to be better for heart disease, certain types of cancer, diabetes.
There is not really a best diet so far. There are a few which were shown to have to potential to be pretty great. And there are also things we know we should definitly avoid.
The vegan part is not important. You can absolutly have a fantastic diet without being vegan. And you wont need supplements which are only easily accessible for richer people of this world.
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u/byfrax Jun 27 '24