Try This –Is a Vegan Diet Actually Better for You?

Hi Everyone! 

Have you heard of the recently announced twin nutrition study out of Stanford? 

Researchers put identical twins on either a vegan or an omnivorous diet to see the impacts of both diets on overall health. 

The reason this study has gotten so much attention is that by choosing twins, researchers have removed a lot of confounding variables because twins are genetically identical! 

Can you guess what happened? Which diet was healthier? Vegan or omnivore? 

It’s not so black and white. 

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Things Aren’t Always What They Seem 

In this study that has taken the internet by storm, researchers followed 22 pairs of identical twins over an eight-week period. One twin was put on a vegan diet and the other an omnivorous one. Both diets were “healthful” and included vegetables, fruits, and whole grains and excluded refined sugars and starches. BUT the omnivores’ diet included animal products and dairy products. 

After the eight-week period, researchers looked at markers like the participant’s lipid panel and fasting insulin and found that the vegan diet improved both. They also lost more weight than the omnivores. 

So, that’s it. Cut and dry, vegan is better…right?

Not exactly!

There are some major plot holes here that we need to discuss. 

Here are some things to consider about this study that I’ve pulled from a few people I look up to in the space of nutrition research:

1. Vegan participants ate 10 percent fewer calories than the omnivores did. Could this have influenced their blood markers like fasting insulin?

2. Vegan participants also ate 50–75 percent less protein than the omnivores, which raises the question, how much muscle mass did the participants lose? Not all weight loss is good weight loss! Losing muscle can have long-term negative impacts on our health.

3. LDL-C improved overall in vegan participants. But, while LDL-C is an important marker, it is not the ONLY marker needed to assess someone’s metabolic health. We know that the lipid particle size and number matters! More on this here.

4. HDL, which is considered to be beneficial, was lowered in vegan participants even though LDL improved. Long-term, having low HDL is considered a risk factor for heart disease.

5. Vitamin B12, which our cells need for optimal health, was also lower in vegan participants. It definitely makes me wonder how their overall nutrition status would be impacted if they stayed on the vegan diet long term.

6. Some people have said this study is biased because the lead researcher on this project is vegan and has received multiple grants from Beyond Meat. But I have a more nuanced take on this.  I’ve learned from Dr. Donald Layman, one of the leading protein researchers, that just because industry contributes to research, that doesn’t in itself mean the research has been influenced. In fact, getting funding to conduct nutrition studies is so difficult that often researchers have to rely on the food industry. The most important thing is transparency because we all have our own individual biases—researchers included!

There are a lot of really interesting things about this study, but is it a slam-dunk study that proves that the vegan diet is better? Based on my view, I don’t think so.

What Can We Learn from This? 

Plant-forward diets have their benefits. Staying away from ultra-processed food and refined sugar is good health advice for everyone. However, the question of animal meat and dairy remains. 

For the first 30 years of my life, I was a vegetarian, and for 10 of those years, I was a vegan. Only in the past decade have I started to incorporate animal protein into my life, and there have been some major benefits: 

• For starters, I had a really difficult time building muscle growing up. It wasn’t until I started to incorporate animal protein that I was able to make serious gains in the gym. It’s probably because I was significantly undereating protein as a vegan and vegetarian. Also, animal forms of protein contain all nine essential amino acids, while only a few plant foods contain all amino acids. Additionally, many people find it difficult to get higher levels of protein in their diet as a vegan while also not overdoing carbs.

• The second thing I’ve noticed since incorporating animal protein into my diet, specifically high-quality fish, is that I have less brain fog. I used to crash in the afternoon, and I wasn’t able to focus for super-long periods of time, but now I feel like I have sustained energy throughout the day.  

BUT…there are major benefits to eating a plant-heavy diet. Here are some things I’ve refined since becoming an omnivore. 

• Fiber is so important. My digestion definitely struggled as I transitioned into an omnivorous diet. I had to shift my diet so that I was eating a ton of veggies every day, which I’ve found is the best way to feed my gut microbiome and keep my digestion smooth. 

• Saturated fat is a tricky subject. There are some people who do well on a high-saturated-fat diet, and some who do not. I personally have familial hypercholesterolemia, which makes me a hyper re-absorber of lipids. All that to say, I have to be mindful of overdoing foods like fattier cuts of meat and coconut oil. I’ve talked about this at length with my cardiologist, Dr. Michael Twyman, and I did a number of tests to personalize my diet to support my heart health.

• Regardless of whether you are an omnivore, a vegan, or a vegetarian, the key is to avoid processed foods. If you do that, you’ll be healthier than 99 percent of people out there. The truth is you can be a junk-food vegan or a junk-food meat eater, and any time I included more processed foods in my diet and not enough real whole foods, I felt like crap! 

Try This – A Plant-Forward, Omnivorous Diet 

I’ve interviewed countless excerpts, and I’ve also had the privilege of experimenting with different diets and working on what is best for me. If you want to try the best of both worlds, here’s what to do. 

1. Eat one gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight daily. Protein is satiating, it helps build muscle, and it keeps you sharp. You can do this whether you eat meat or are vegetarian. If you’re looking for vegetarian recipes with high amounts of protein, check out my friend Simon Hill’s guide. Some higher-protein vegetarian foods include tofu, lentils, beans, and quinoa.

2. Limit processed and packaged food. No explanation needed here—the more whole foods, the better.

3. Eat an abundance of colorful plant foods. The more variety there is in your diet over the long haul, the happier your gut bugs and the better your digestion will be. Some who need deeper gut healing might have to work with a practitioner before eating a ton of fiber.

4. If you eat grains, and I do every so often, stick to whole-food versions of grains like rice, buckwheat, millet, and quinoa instead of highly refined pastries and pasta.

5. Exercise matters. Just eating a healthy diet or just exercising alone are not going to get you to optimal health. We have to combine both to achieve the best health we can. Don’t neglect exercise, and don’t neglect eating well. 

Just to be clear, I have no problem with people being on a vegetarian or vegan diet. But since so many of my friends sent me this study, I thought I would cover some of the nuances for my audience.

Here’s to your health, Dhru Purohit