Oh Robin ,you are so good at what you reveal in your interesting and informative posts...this morning I was reading this post while enjoying my breakfast of fresh fruit,raw rolled oats,wheat germ,home made soy yogurt,Cinamon,nutmeg and freshly ground Flaxseed AND, outside listening to the cacophony of bird calls and bees in our garden set in the middle of 40 acres (we call it a "health,relaxation and wild life retreat set in a Flora and Fauna Paradise ") and none of that is exaggeration.
I'm 80 in a few weeks, ( biological age of about 50) NO animal products for the last 30 years, and had to visit my doctor for my annual fitness to drive test....he said " I could pass you based on your successful backwards somersault off the bridge but, technically I have to ask the questions on the official form".
Can’t wait to see what you do on your 80th birthday—-that bridge somersault will be hard to top!! You’re a great advertisement for a plant-based diet!! 👏👏👍
Hey Davo, you stole my breakfast!!!! I'll raise you one though: I put finely shredded home-grown baby kale and Asian greens in my morning oats. Sounds weird, but it actually tastes good, especially with some mango, and fresh mulberries off our tree which is groaning with fruit right now!
Are you going to upset your wife again this year by somersaulting off that bridge 😂?
It needs plenty more testing, but in the mean time, I'm sticking with the eating pattern that's kept me healthy for close to 40 years - plants, plants, and more plants!
Great article Robin! You are a wealth of knowledge and you write in a way that educates and stimulates. Not sure I want to give up my animal based proteins but certainly gives me something to consider.
On the topic of protein, I hope you will write a piece about the need to consume more as we age to avoid sarcopenia. I have read the importance of leucine especially for peri and post menopausal women. I would love your take on this.
I don't expect anyone to change their diet without persuasive evidence. I'll be watching the literature closely for evidence for or against my hypothesis, especially as the carnivore influencers age up.
Thanks for the great suggestion re sarcopenia. This has been a hobbyhorse of mine for many years, as I've urged (with varying degrees of success) middle-aged and older women to take up weight training.
Forgot to say, I love that Christopher Gardner was reluctant to include epigenetic age measures because he did not believe that any marker of aging could change over such a short duration. It is indeed astonishing.
I remember seeing him in a podcast or interview or something, and he was asked why are there no studies comparing WFPB vs carnivore diet, i.e. one group of people on WFPB and the other group on carnivore? He response was that it would be unethical! (i.e. given the mountains of evidence that exists that the people on the carnivore diet would be harmed)
I get what Gardner means about not wanting to harm people by randomising them to the carnivore diet, but there are plenty of people who've adopted it voluntarily, so I consider it perfectly ethical to study them. Obviously that's not a randomised controlled trial, but there's still scope for a cohort study.
Neither this study, nor the study which was the flagship of the TwiNS project (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2812392), received funding from Beyond Meat. This study was funded by the Vogt Foundation while the flagship study was funded by the Vogt Foundation, and by grants UL1TR001085 and TL1R001085 from the Stanford Clinical and Translational Science Award unit, and grant T32HL161270 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. All funding information is listed in published studies, and it takes roughly 30 seconds to locate it. Please be more careful when making claims - check it for yourself rather than regurgitating what you've heard from ignorant people spouting off online.
A decline in HDL is complete normal when total cholesterol falls, as HDL is a component of total cholesterol. HDL is not a marker of cardiovascular risk, so a decline in HDL is clinically unimportant.
The increase in triglycerides was not statistically significant, meaning it could be due to chance. If you look at Figure 2 in the study (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2812392), you will see that the interquartile range of triglycerides in the omnivore group, overlapped with the IQR for the vegan group.
It is true that the vegan group ate fewer calories than the ominvore group, and this has been acknowledged by Christopher Gardner. However, the study was not set up to be a weight loss study ("our diet design did not include a prescribed energy restriction and was not intended to be a weight loss study") and participants were encourage to eat to satiety, so the fact that those assigned to the vegan diet lost weight is meaningful in the sense that foods that are high in fibre (whole plant foods) produce greater satiety, allowing people to lose weight without going hungry.
Only two twin pairs underwent body composition analysis, an insufficient sample size to make any generalisations about the effect of a vegan diet.
Most people who try any diet that's different from their usual fare, don't continue it. That's human nature. I have no idea what meals were provided to participants, nor what their previous eating habits were like - except that most of them were overweight, which is a bit of a clue. In studies which show long-term adherence to a wholefood plant-based eating pattern (e.g. the BROAD Study - https://www.nature.com/articles/nutd20173), there's a big emphasis on getting the whole community involved, which facilitates participants' ability to stick with the new eating pattern long-term.
The Stanford Twin Study received funding from Beyond Meat
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Ebel reported receiving grants from the National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology during the conduct of the study. Dr Gardner reported receiving funding from Beyond Meat outside the submitted work. Dr J. L.
Sonnenburg is a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub investigator. No other disclosures were reported.
Funding/Support: This study was funded by the Vogt Foundation (Drs Robinson, J. L.
Sonnenburg, and Gardner and Ms Hennings), grants UL1TRO01085 and TL1R001085 from the Stanford Clinical and Translational Science Award unit (Dr O'Hara), and grant T32HL161270 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (Dr Ward).
Read it again. "Dr Gardner reported receiving funding from Beyond Meat outside the submitted work." In other words, Beyond Meat was NOT involved in funding this study. Beyond Meat funded another study that he was involved in, and journals' conflict of interest disclosures require authors to mention this. Christopher Gardner has repeatedly made this point but there are none so deaf as those who will not hear.
Oh Robin ,you are so good at what you reveal in your interesting and informative posts...this morning I was reading this post while enjoying my breakfast of fresh fruit,raw rolled oats,wheat germ,home made soy yogurt,Cinamon,nutmeg and freshly ground Flaxseed AND, outside listening to the cacophony of bird calls and bees in our garden set in the middle of 40 acres (we call it a "health,relaxation and wild life retreat set in a Flora and Fauna Paradise ") and none of that is exaggeration.
I'm 80 in a few weeks, ( biological age of about 50) NO animal products for the last 30 years, and had to visit my doctor for my annual fitness to drive test....he said " I could pass you based on your successful backwards somersault off the bridge but, technically I have to ask the questions on the official form".
Thanks Robyn,
Davo😊.
Way to go, Davo, and soon to be happy birthday wishes!!
Thanks Barbara,
Check out the mentioned bridge jump,you might get a laugh 🤣,only 2 minutes on YouTube.
@davidslater9297
Can’t wait to see what you do on your 80th birthday—-that bridge somersault will be hard to top!! You’re a great advertisement for a plant-based diet!! 👏👏👍
Hey Davo, you stole my breakfast!!!! I'll raise you one though: I put finely shredded home-grown baby kale and Asian greens in my morning oats. Sounds weird, but it actually tastes good, especially with some mango, and fresh mulberries off our tree which is groaning with fruit right now!
Are you going to upset your wife again this year by somersaulting off that bridge 😂?
You're a legend! Happy birthday!
Totally agree with you are Robyn being so good at writing interesting and informative columns!
Thanks KM,
certainly don't see myself as anywhere near a legend,just lucky to have stumbled on "my perfect diet" about 30 years ago.
Check out the said bridge jump on YouTube and only 2 minutes but,you might get a laugh 🤣.
@davidslater9297
Fascinating as always Robyn! Thank you! Your hypothesis makes sense to me!
It needs plenty more testing, but in the mean time, I'm sticking with the eating pattern that's kept me healthy for close to 40 years - plants, plants, and more plants!
Great article Robin! You are a wealth of knowledge and you write in a way that educates and stimulates. Not sure I want to give up my animal based proteins but certainly gives me something to consider.
On the topic of protein, I hope you will write a piece about the need to consume more as we age to avoid sarcopenia. I have read the importance of leucine especially for peri and post menopausal women. I would love your take on this.
I don't expect anyone to change their diet without persuasive evidence. I'll be watching the literature closely for evidence for or against my hypothesis, especially as the carnivore influencers age up.
Thanks for the great suggestion re sarcopenia. This has been a hobbyhorse of mine for many years, as I've urged (with varying degrees of success) middle-aged and older women to take up weight training.
Forgot to say, I love that Christopher Gardner was reluctant to include epigenetic age measures because he did not believe that any marker of aging could change over such a short duration. It is indeed astonishing.
I remember seeing him in a podcast or interview or something, and he was asked why are there no studies comparing WFPB vs carnivore diet, i.e. one group of people on WFPB and the other group on carnivore? He response was that it would be unethical! (i.e. given the mountains of evidence that exists that the people on the carnivore diet would be harmed)
I get what Gardner means about not wanting to harm people by randomising them to the carnivore diet, but there are plenty of people who've adopted it voluntarily, so I consider it perfectly ethical to study them. Obviously that's not a randomised controlled trial, but there's still scope for a cohort study.
It was made by the same people behind ‘The Game Changers’.
The Stanford Twin Study received funding from Beyond Meat.
It is also interesting to note that after eight weeks, HDL in vegan participants DROPPED…while triglycerides went UP.
The controlled feeding portion of the study covered only the first four weeks.
We don’t know for sure how closely participants adhered to their respective diets in those final four weeks.
Researchers reported that the vegan group ‘lost more weight’ and improved fasting insulin levels compared to the omnivore group.
But what they did NOT mention was that the vegan group consumed, on average, fewer calories than the omnivores.
The vegan twins LOST lean muscle mass except for one (who only gained 2.3lbs of muscle compared to the meat eater who gained 7.1lbs)
Only ONE participant decided to continue to eat vegan post-trial & the vegan participants reported ‘lower dietary satisfaction’.
I'm not sure what you mean by "It was made by the same people behind ‘The Game Changers’." In this article, I'm talking about a specific study, which was conceived and conducted by scientists. The Game Changers was a documentary. There is precisely zero crossover between the authorship of this paper, which is listed at https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-024-03513-w#author-information, and the team behind The Game Changers (https://gamechangersmovie.com/team/).
Neither this study, nor the study which was the flagship of the TwiNS project (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2812392), received funding from Beyond Meat. This study was funded by the Vogt Foundation while the flagship study was funded by the Vogt Foundation, and by grants UL1TR001085 and TL1R001085 from the Stanford Clinical and Translational Science Award unit, and grant T32HL161270 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. All funding information is listed in published studies, and it takes roughly 30 seconds to locate it. Please be more careful when making claims - check it for yourself rather than regurgitating what you've heard from ignorant people spouting off online.
A decline in HDL is complete normal when total cholesterol falls, as HDL is a component of total cholesterol. HDL is not a marker of cardiovascular risk, so a decline in HDL is clinically unimportant.
The increase in triglycerides was not statistically significant, meaning it could be due to chance. If you look at Figure 2 in the study (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2812392), you will see that the interquartile range of triglycerides in the omnivore group, overlapped with the IQR for the vegan group.
It is true that the vegan group ate fewer calories than the ominvore group, and this has been acknowledged by Christopher Gardner. However, the study was not set up to be a weight loss study ("our diet design did not include a prescribed energy restriction and was not intended to be a weight loss study") and participants were encourage to eat to satiety, so the fact that those assigned to the vegan diet lost weight is meaningful in the sense that foods that are high in fibre (whole plant foods) produce greater satiety, allowing people to lose weight without going hungry.
Only two twin pairs underwent body composition analysis, an insufficient sample size to make any generalisations about the effect of a vegan diet.
Most people who try any diet that's different from their usual fare, don't continue it. That's human nature. I have no idea what meals were provided to participants, nor what their previous eating habits were like - except that most of them were overweight, which is a bit of a clue. In studies which show long-term adherence to a wholefood plant-based eating pattern (e.g. the BROAD Study - https://www.nature.com/articles/nutd20173), there's a big emphasis on getting the whole community involved, which facilitates participants' ability to stick with the new eating pattern long-term.
The Stanford Twin Study received funding from Beyond Meat
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Ebel reported receiving grants from the National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology during the conduct of the study. Dr Gardner reported receiving funding from Beyond Meat outside the submitted work. Dr J. L.
Sonnenburg is a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub investigator. No other disclosures were reported.
Funding/Support: This study was funded by the Vogt Foundation (Drs Robinson, J. L.
Sonnenburg, and Gardner and Ms Hennings), grants UL1TRO01085 and TL1R001085 from the Stanford Clinical and Translational Science Award unit (Dr O'Hara), and grant T32HL161270 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (Dr Ward).
Read it again. "Dr Gardner reported receiving funding from Beyond Meat outside the submitted work." In other words, Beyond Meat was NOT involved in funding this study. Beyond Meat funded another study that he was involved in, and journals' conflict of interest disclosures require authors to mention this. Christopher Gardner has repeatedly made this point but there are none so deaf as those who will not hear.