At the helm of political debates and divisive party lines, new research shows a plant-based vegan diet can reduce 70 percent of food-based emissions, slash up to $1 trillion dollars in annual health care spending and save 8.1 million lives over 30 years. If a vegan diet were running for president, it would have an impressive platform. Outside of strengthening national security by combatting chronic disease, like childhood obesity and prediabetes, a plant-based prescription can free up scientists’ valuable time and research money to focus on larger initiatives, such as precision medicine and preventing the spread of infectious disease.
In addition to providing a nonpartisan solution to today’s health problems, a plant-based diet can boost productivity in and out of the workplace — showing that Yes We Can! make progress.
Could four food groups — vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes — revitalize our country?
[See: 7 Reasons to Choose a Plant-Based Diet.]
Yes. Here’s how it works:
By using a plant-based diet to treat and reduce the risk of chronic lifestyle disease, we can curb $1 trillion in annual health care spending — equivalent to 10 million heart surgeries each year, about one for every 32 United States residents. This would allow physicians to focus on treating real-time health problems, like the stomach flu, instead of booking extended visits to treat lifestyle disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol and insulin resistance. It could even create a solution to today’s primary physician shortage, enabling doctors to do more with less volume.
The largest managed care organization in our country agrees. In 2013, Kaiser Permanente encouraged its clinicians to prescribe a whole-food, plant-based diet as a cost-effective method to help patients treat and reduce the risk for obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and even certain forms of cancer. This came after the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics position paper that states well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for athletes and individuals during all stages of the lifecycle, with notes about health gains: lower body mass index, lower risk of heart disease, lower cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure and lower rates of overall cancer. By 2015, everyone was on board — from Beyoncé to Tom Brady — proving this way of eating delivers results.
[Read: 15 Foods That Cut Your Cancer Risk.]
A research study with GEICO employees in Chevy Chase, Maryland, finds a plant-based vegan diet provides more than just metabolic health benefits. More than 135 employees who participated in a controlled 18-week study saw improvements in productivity, both in and out of the workplace, and reported alleviation of anxiety, depression and chronic fatigue. While the bottom line results weren’t measured, we can only imagine what happens when we create an engaged and productive workplace. It transcends out of the board room and into society.
As we forge ahead with the 2016 presidential election, let’s take a minute to work a plant-based diet into the debate. A diet can’t negotiate trade agreements with Cuba or meet with Canada’s prime minister, but plant-based nutrition, whether it’s a $1 plate of rice and beans or a $10 bottle of organic cold-pressed juice, has the ability to save trillions of health care dollars, export chronic diseases that are ravaging our nation and not just save, but bolster Americans’ lives.
We know a vegan diet can’t run for office, but let’s at least bring nutrition into the debate. What we eat expands past consumer choice; it has the ability to shape and repair our country’s most pressing problems, from personal health care to our country’s economic survival.
[See: The 12 Best Diets for Your Heart.]
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Next Up for the 2016 Presidential Election: a Plant-Based Diet originally appeared on usnews.com
