Eating a vegetarian diet high in soluble fiber and low in saturated fat can reduce cholesterol nearly as much as cholesterol-lowering medication, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association July 23.
Eating a vegetarian diet high in soluble fiber and low in saturated fat can reduce cholesterol nearly as much as cholesterol-lowering medication, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association July 23.
A medical team, led by Dr. David Jenkins—who introduced the Garden of Eden diet, which includes raw food—found that a plant-based diet reduced LDL cholesterol 28.6 percent after one month. Subjects on a low-fat diet and taking lovastatin, a cholesterol-lowering drug, reduced their cholesterol by 30.9 percent during the same period.
“The statistical significance of the benefit of the plant-based diet is very impressive,” says Dr. Peter Landless, a cardiologist, and associate director of health ministries for the Adventist world church.
“There’s no question a plant-based diet is good. We’ve been a little lax in applying it even though we’ve known it for 150 years,” he says.
“An important addendum is that patients who have established arterial disease [stroke, or heart attack] should use this kind of diet in addition to well proven lipid-lowering medication,” says Landless. “This is not a reason to throw away your medication.”
The study is the result of a small number of subjects, 46, who apparently had no known arterial disease or familial hypercholesterolemia (an inherited excessive cholesterol level). Still, Landless says, “The result is positive, and it confirms what we know.”
At the same time, while Adventist health officials are pleased with the study, they do not endorse other recommendations made by the group.
“The raw foods movement is ludicrous,” says Stoy Proctor, associate director of health ministries for the Adventist Church. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Fruit is fine to have raw, but proteins, carbohydrates, and fats will be assimilated better if they’re cooked.”
“When a person eats a raw bean they only assimilate about 10 percent of the nutrients—the cell walls are too thick,” he explains. “When it’s cooked a person receives 90 to 95 percent of its nutrients.”
Carrots, spinach, and tomatoes, he says, release phytochemicals only when cooked. Phytochemicals in stewed tomatoes [lycopene] have been shown to reduce the rate of prostate cancer.
Proponents of eating mainly raw foods say cooking foods destroys live enzymes. However, Proctor says these are not the enzymes the body uses to digest food. “The acid in the stomach neutralizes them almost immediately. The ingested enzymes are destroyed anyway, they don’t go beyond the stomach.
“Every animal does better on cooked proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Farmers would get more bang for their buck if they cooked those foods for their animals.”
