The Wellness Scoop - How a Plant-Based Diet Can Transform Your Health

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

We’re joined by Dr. Shireen Kassam, an NHS consultant and board-certified lifestyle medicine physician. Here’s a short recap of what we discuss: The power of diet and lifestyle factors in health and disease outcomes What is an unhealthy diet? The impact of ultra-processed foods in the body  What is inflammation, how is it related to diet and how is it linked to chronic diseases? Diet and immunity Why it is never too late to adopt a plant-based diet to improve our health Healthcare and the commercial industry How to optimise health on a plant-based diet The role of diet in cancer Lifestyle habits to improve our health Shireen Kassam: Book: ‘Eating Plant-Based: Scientific Answers to Your Nutrition Questions’ @plantbasedhealthprofessionals https://plantbasedhealthonline.com https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Ella Mills, the founder of Deliciously Ella, and this is our podcast, Delicious Ways to Feel Better. Each episode explores various aspects of our mental and physical health to help you make the small, simple changes to your life to feel happier and healthier. And today we're looking at why a plant-based whole foods diet can truly transform your health. There's specific differences in the makeup of the plant protein and the animal protein and actually plant protein has a number of advantages and it actually reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and ultimately improves your longevity and quality of life. Before we delve into today's episode, I wanted to let you know about our

sponsor. And a little note on our sponsor, we only work with brands that I actually use and that I truly love. We will never promote something that isn't totally authentic or something that I don't believe in. So for the next few months, our podcast sponsor is Simprove, a supplements company that I've been using to support my gut health for about five years now. I was buying it for years before I even started working with them and I know that gut health is such a prevalent topic right now and something that so many of you are interested in too. The gut microbiome is made up of trillions of bacteria that support pretty much all aspects of both our mental and our physical health from digestion to our immune

system, energy production and our mental health and keeping that right balance of good bacteria in our gut is absolutely essential and whilst our diet and lifestyles play a huge role in that adding in live bacteria can really help too the bacteria in Simprove which is a water-based supplement can survive that long journey from the mouth to the gut where they're then able to multiply and support the microbiome I truly swear by it and I really hope that you love it too for anyone wanting to try it they've shared a 15% off code with us just use Ella15 which is valid on Simprove.com within the UK and for any existing customers they also have a brilliant subscribers package too. So today's guest is Dr Shireen Kassam. She's a

consultant hematologist and honorary senior lecturer at King's College Hospital and she's also a board certified lifestyle medicine physician. Shireen discovered the power of nutrition for the prevention and treatment of disease in 2013 and has followed a whole food plant-based diet ever since. In 2017 she founded Plant-Based Health Professionals UK which brings evidence-based education on plant-based nutrition all across the country. In 2001 she also co-founded Plant- Based Health Online, which is the UK's first care quality commission, which is about multidisciplinary plant based lifestyle medicine, health care services. And she's also just written her first book, Eating Plant Based.

So welcome, Shireen. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. Thanks, Ella, for having me. It's wonderful to be here. So I'd actually love to start and hear a little bit more about you and your background and how you went from qualifying as a medical doctor in 2000 to where you are now, the founder and director of Plant-Based Health Professionals and why it's so important to you to work to educate others around health and well-being and plant-based diets, obviously, in particular. Great, thanks for asking me. Obviously, my favourite topic to talk about. And my background is really conventional. I finished my A-levels, went to medical school in London, and I trained in general medicine and then specialised in haematology, which is disorders of the blood, and then specialising further in

lymphoma, which is a cancer of the lymphatic system. And during my training, I also did a PhD, which happened actually to be sort of in the field of nutraceuticals, because I was studying the impact of high doses of selenium in patients who had lymphoma and whether that enhanced the efficacy of standard chemotherapy. So at that time, I wasn't particularly interested in nutrition, but it's nice to look back now. But I became vegan for ethical reasons back in 2013. And that kind of sparked my interest in the whole science of plant based nutrition and how it might be able to impact my health, but obviously, more importantly, my patients health. And I was getting all this information from the US and other parts of the world and

realized there weren't health professionals in the UK advocating for plant-based diets as a way of preventing and managing and even reversing chronic illness. And I thought, well, somebody needed to be creating a network of like-minded health professionals, of which there are a number, but we hadn't had the opportunity to come together until I launched Plant Based Health Professionals UK in 2018. And how have you found the transition on a personal level? Well, it was relatively easy for me, you know, I'm from a South Asian background. So a lot of my traditional and home cooking vegetarian, if not vegan, and I went vegetarian first in 2001. So sort of making that transition in 2013 didn't seem that big a deal. Like everybody, I enjoyed cheese, and that was

difficult to give up just temporarily. But when you make the connection between what or who is on your plate, it no longer feels like food as such. So it's been wonderful. And myself, my husband, my whole family are thriving on a plant based diet. It's been a it's been a family journey. Oh, that's so nice to hear that. So Shireen, I wondered if we could actually just go back and start with a more macro look at this and understand actually how our diet and various different lifestyle factors actually influence our health. Because I think sometimes it can be challenging to understand that what we eat for lunch today or what we eat next week may actually have a tangible impact on our health and well-being. Yeah, thank you. It's such an important question. And it's amazing to me to look back at the fact that I was qualified as an

NHS doctor for 13 years, practicing in a hospital and not realizing the power of diet and lifestyle habits on disease outcomes and your risk of chronic illness. So just focusing in on diet alone, we've just had a publication of the Global Nutrition Report, which comes out every year. But this year's report shows us just how badly we're doing in the UK, but also globally on our diet habits, essentially. So the report showed us that one in four deaths globally is caused by an unhealthy diet. And you might ask, well, what is an unhealthy diet? And they described a diet that was too high in animal foods, so particularly meat, too high in salt and sugar, and just not enough of the healthy plant foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, of which we're eating a quarter of what we should be consuming. So that is huge, one in four deaths. And we know that diet

really impacts our risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and even dementia, which is now rising in prevalence globally. And then to look at the bigger picture with other lifestyle habits, because of course, diet is not the only lifestyle factor, but physical activity, avoiding alcohol and tobacco smoking, dressing less, loving more, those sorts of things, sleeping well, we could prevent 80% of the chronic conditions we see on an everyday basis in our healthcare system. That is a profound impact that we can make. But I always do qualify that with the fact when I'm talking about these things that, you know, diet and lifestyle habits

are not always a choice for an individual, but we don't choose to live an unhealthy life. There's many circumstances that are at play that demean that people are sort of forced sometimes to make these unhealthy choices. But equally, we need to do better on an education side on getting this message out there that prevention is key and we're in an epidemic of chronic illness. Absolutely. I mean, I couldn't agree with every word you said there more. I wanted to ask actually,reen it's it's so interesting

because obviously in the UK but I think we're seeing it across the world that we have this challenge now of this rise in chronic diseases and obviously we're seeing this extraordinary burden on our NHS but obviously on healthcare systems across the world and that's been so exacerbated over the last few years with the pandemic do you feel there is this real disconnect between a more holistic take incorporating stress sleep diet exercise and the conventional western approach to medicine as you said you spend over a decade as a doctor went through the full many years of training and yet didn't have that knowledge of how nutrition and lifestyle really played into the diseases in which you're dealing with day in day out? I mean, I think the answer

is yes and no. I think you can have a really narrow view when you're working in secondary care like I do, and you're seeing the end result of chronic illness and all you have at your fingertips is really the sort of allopathic conventional medicine and of course at that stage people need that treatment so for example in my specialty where I treat people with lymphoma I don't have a choice to spend time talking about diet and lifestyle they need the kind of chemotherapies and the conventional treatments that I have to offer but then that that part of healthcare is very separate then from the upstream sort of healthcare where we should be focusing in on diet and lifestyle habits for

prevention. But having said that, I think, well, I know that there's a growing movement of doctors like myself who have realized that there's more to healthcare than the pharmaceutical and procedural and surgical solutions. And we are getting the information and what we call the lifestyle medicine movement is now global. Having been born out of America with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine back in 2004, it's now sort of really taken off. And we have the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine here in the UK, where you get a qualification, a diploma and the tools necessary to try and incorporate the knowledge on diet and lifestyle into clinical practice. So someone like myself has now got a qualification as a certified lifestyle medicine physician. And when the time

and resources are available, I do incorporate that knowledge for my patients into their sort of treatment pathway because I see them in one moment in time, but obviously everyone asks me the question about what should I eat? What should I do? Is there anything I can do to improve my chances? And now I feel like I can give them a better evidence-based answer to those questions and some tools and some resources that will point them on their way as they continue their health journey. It's very exciting to see that change in conversation and starting to see people realise in the mainstream that these roles of nutrition and exercise etc can be so powerful in prevention and do play a tangible role. I know when I changed my lifestyle 10 years ago just from friends and family and people around me, they thought I was crazy and that this was very woo woo.

And actually every year it feels like more evidence is becoming more mainstream that actually stress, sleep, vegetables actually are more powerful, I'd love to understand, you know, talking about the fact that we're only eating a quarter of the plant foods and all those colourful vegetables and fruits and beans, etc. And I'd love to understand actually why this change to an ultra process. I think I'm right in saying it's about 56% of calories that we buy now, both in the UK and the US are actually ultra processed. Why that is a problem. What does that do within the body that does compromise our health? But then on the flip side, why incorporating those foods can be so positive, whether you're fully plant based or partially, but really filling up

your plate with fresh whole food ingredients? Yeah, great. Thank you. Great question. It's a really complex history, I think about how the food environment has changed so much. You know, I guess our lifestyles have changed so much. We've become so disconnected with like where our food comes from and from the people that produce it and even understanding how to grow food. And I'm talking about myself here as well. I can't make anything grow and I want to, and I know the benefits of it. So I think we're so disconnected from that. Our lives are very sort of urban and very much focused on our everyday going to work and raising children and that sort of thing that really we haven't prioritized, you know, the food and nutrition side. And as a consequence, the food industry has taken over and really sort of made all this convenient to us, you know, it's helped mothers go back to work, but you can get

home and just microwave your meals and things. And obviously, there's an advantage, you know, these foods have shelf life, they're highly palatable, they can be made really cheap, and they're addictive. So you know, people come back for more and food industry are making so much money out of this that it sort of fuels this cycle of convenience and not taking the time to make healthy meals. So, you know, why is ultra processed food so bad for us? I mean, that's such a complex question because we understand at a body level, so many things that happen when we are eating sort of factory made foods, you know, on a basic level, a lot of the food has much of the beneficial nutrients taken out, such as the fiber and many of the B vitamins when you sort of refine grains or make brown

rice into white rice, for example. And then we have lots of additives and preservatives and emulsifiers added that we now know anyway that affect the gut microbiome, causes inflammation, and then, you know, messes up the signaling throughout our body and every body organ. And then this sort of combination of fat, sugar, and salt, and all those really strong flavors, we know the food industry has formulated so that it really does have this chemical process in our body and our brains that we want to come back for more. And just in the last year or so, there's been a really insightful study just showing us how ultra processed foods compared to

a diet made up of healthy foods really makes us eat so many more calories, even though we're not trying to or we're aware of the fact that we should just be eating till we're full, just the formulation makes you less full or less satiated, and doesn't signal your body to stop eating. So you over consume, and then that drives inflammation, overweight, obesity, and all the other chronic conditions that happen from there. And of course, when you're eating these ultra processed foods, you have to think about what you're not eating. So you're not eating every single food that is associated with promoting health. And these can be summarized very easily in a few food groups, you know, the only foods associated with good health of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds. Now, that sounds really restrictive. But of course,

there's, you know, 20,000 or more edible plants. And so there's great variety, great colour, and they're full of all different nutrients. And the issue with our current diet pattern, that is known as sort of westernised diet, is that we're deficient in fibre, very deficient, you know, in the UK, adults get about 18 grams of fiber a day rather than 30 grams. And we're not getting enough of the micronutrients that are present in all these colorful fruits and vegetables. So things like folate and vitamin C, we're even recommending multivitamins for children, because we're just not eating a variety of plant foods. And you know, we've got studies that show that a diet that's predominantly based around healthy plant foods reduces inflammation, keeps your blood

lipid levels, so your cholesterol and triglyceride levels low. It promotes the health of the gut microbiome and it reduces oxidative stress. And these are all key mechanisms that are driving our chronic epidemic of illness. So there's a great science, we understand a lot about it. I think the disconnect is sort of getting that science into practice and making the food environment healthier. Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly, because I think it's one thing to understand that it's important. And it's another thing to action it and actioning it and changing habits is certainly no easy feat and I think it's always so important to definitely be forgiving in that I certainly found changing my diet is not nowhere near as easy as you think it will be

you know when you go to make dinner on a Monday night thinking about totally different ingredients is takes time and that's that's such a normal thing but Shireen I'd love to pick up on a few things that you mentioned there and I think one ofen i'd love to pick up on a few things that you mentioned there and i think one of them is inflammation because i feel it's a word we see a lot whether that's in the media or on podcasts it feels like quite a buzzword but i'd be actually fantastic just to get a definition of what inflammation really is what causes it and why that's a bad thing so inflammation doesn't have to be bad. Obviously, it's the reaction of the body that shouldn't be happening. So if you hit your knee, it's going to get red

and swollen, and that's inflammation. But at the same time, you have all your immune system and all your cells that are involved in repairing the tissue coming there into play to then heal that wound or injury. So that's kind of acute inflammation. But you can have this low grade chronic inflammation going on in the background, unbeknownst to you, but over decades will then become a problem. And it's when your body is out of kilter, because you're not supplying your body with the right nutrients and the right nourishment. So for example, when it comes to diet, your diet can either be composed of foods that cause inflammation, or you can have a diet that is full of compounds that reduce inflammation, what we call

anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds that are found in all the healthy plant foods. Now, for example, we've got clear evidence that red meat and processed meat all act to increase levels of inflammation in the blood and around the body. And we can detect that by measuring certain markers in the blood that show that you're reacting in an inflamed way, as it were. And that inflammation is damaging, directly damaging your cells, the proteins, the DNA, and the general functioning of the body. And I think what people don't realize is that when you just carry too much weight, for example, that fat tissue is not just sat there doing nothing,

it's not inert. It's secreting these inflammatory compounds that are then going on to either cause proliferation of cells, damages the DNA, the protein, and in general, make the cells less efficient in what they're meant to be doing. And the worst case scenario is that the cells become abnormal and give rise to a cancer, for example. But as we mentioned, it's sort of something you do over decades, you don't kind of think that today's meal is going to then, you know, result in an illness or inflammation. It's just that repeated insult with the wrong types of food or the lack of physical activity, the lack of sleep, and all these healthy lifestyle factors, they can all help to dampen down inflammation, or if you're not getting enough of their healthy habits going

and just you know having one night of poor sleep you won't feel good and your body and your cells will be reacting by secreting these inflammatory compounds that then damage your cells. I think it's so important what you said there as well is that it's not about one meal it's about decades and I think that's such an important message because I think sometimes when we talk about health and well-being I know some people can find it difficult to compartmentalize that that there's nothing wrong with having fried food here or there and you know take away food here or there it's absolutely not it's about what we do as a foundation day in day out over decades and I think that's such an important message it's's not good versus bad. It's long-term habits. And that's what we're talking about here. And Shireen, I just wanted to clarify something

and check that I'm right in this understanding that is that this long-term inflammation, as you said, over decades can cause rise to higher blood pressure, precursor to type 2 diabetes, and these various different metabolic diseases that we're seeing give rise to the kind of epidemic of chronic diseases? Yeah absolutely at a really basic level inflammation is the key trigger for all of these illnesses alongside the factors that sort of create that inflammation like your abnormal blood lipids, the damage to the lining of the arteries, what we call endothelial damage that will then lead to high blood pressure and heart disease. It'll be the insulin resistance that then leads to type 2 diabetes. So yeah, you can really boil it all

down to external abnormal factors, be it lifestyle or environmental, that then trigger inflammation and then over the longer term will lead to these chronic illnesses. Very very powerful yeah to understand that we can obviously there's a lot that's outside of our control but there's a lot that's also inside our control and looking at that prevention so if we're looking at that sense of prevention I'd love to talk a little bit about what we can do for example there's obviously a whole new conversation around COVID again I know people are very interested in immunity at this time of year what's the role between our diet and immunity and supporting a really healthy functional immune system which I think at this time of year feels particularly important for lots of our listeners. Yeah and

such an interesting topic and I've been taking a keen interest in all the studies coming out on diet, lifestyle and COVID outcomes. Actually, it's been a fascinating journey in science to unfold. And while it's in my mind just to say that we have results from the now famous Zoe COVID app showing that a healthy plant based diet can reduce your risk of actually contracting COVID-19 by about 10%. But more importantly, given that we're probably all going to get COVID at some point, is that it reduces the risk of severe COVID-19 by 40%. I mean, that is huge that just one simple change or a shift towards a healthy plant-based diet can make such a big impact. Because as you rightly say, our diet directly impacts our immune system. Probably the greatest impact is by keeping our gut microbiome healthy, making sure that there's a diversity of bacteria, that the right bacteria are there. And those bacteria that we want the most are producing the signaling molecules called

short-chain fatty acids that then stimulate the immune system. And that's also been shown during these 18 months or so of science looking at the impact of diet and COVID that a healthy gut microbiome might be key to reducing the severity of COVID-19. And it's because our immune system thrives on all these minerals and phytonutrients and vitamins. You know, we all know intuitively that vitamin C and E and folate and all sorts are going to impact our immune system. And the only way to find them is in the healthy plant foods.

And I think there's a positive message here, because I guess what we haven't touched upon is that it really isn't too late. Our body has such an immense ability to heal. And that's been shown over and over again. I mean, just to consider that you might have spent decades building up to a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, but within a matter of weeks to months, you could actually reverse that process by adopting a healthy diet and lifestyle and getting back to a healthy weight. So it really is never too late. And it's never too late for your immune system. So as you say, at this time of year,

when we're all struggling with various viruses, and of course, still COVID, I think it's so important to focus in and start making those few changes, small changes that you can, which is about crowding out the foods that really do not contribute to health, such as the meat and the dairy and the eggs, and replacing them with healthy, minimally processed whole plant foods. And variety is key. We should be eating more than 30 different plant species a week, you know, to keep our gut microbiome healthy. So it's about getting that variety and not being monotonous and adding lots of herbs and spices, which comes easily to me from a background of an Indian diet. But I think, you know, that's how to make plant-based foods pleasurable is just really upping the ante with all the herbs and spices

and getting those unique and global flavors out there. So yeah, lots to be done. And I hope people take up the challenge of veganuaryuary or we've also got a 21 day plant based health challenge at plant based health professionals where we support people with emails and also live q&a to adopt these healthy habits and particularly a plant based diet. Do you find it frustrating sometimes given the body of evidence that now exists around our lifestyle and the power we have, as you said, that it's not too late and that actually the body of evidence that now exists around our lifestyle and the power we have as you said that it's not too late and that actually the body who does start to respond very very quickly and the power of prevention do you find it frustrating that this isn't part of a mainstream

narrative especially I think our total health has been such a big part of our conversation over the last two years with Covid it's not to get into COVID policies here, but we've locked down the whole country, but we haven't had a conversation really, I don't feel, on a national scale about our health and about what we could do and what we could have been doing over the last few years to support our immune system, to support our bodies more. And as you said at the beginning, of course, there's lots of factors at play, socioeconomic factors, and it's not to downplay that. But at the same time, there's probably quite a lot that quite a lot of us could implement from right now. Yeah, I totally agree. I think the emphasis is completely wrong in our healthcare system.

And I speak from a UK perspective, but I know that, you know, other high income countries face the same issue. So for example, in the NHS, 5% of the budget of over 200 billion is spent on prevention. And that includes things like vaccination and mammograms and screening tools, you know, early detection. So we spend just a tiny fraction of what we require on keeping our citizens healthy. And as you say, that has really been highlighted and brought to the forefront of our minds during this pandemic, because we know those that suffer the most from the virus and the worst consequences are those with underlying health conditions, like carrying too much weight, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, even just high blood pressure and high

cholesterol can adversely impact your outcome yet we've sort of accepted those conditions as being normal with aging and it's very far from normal I think we've sort of lulled into this false sense of security that with age we'll get an illness but our doctor will give us a medication and all will be fine but it's just not fine. And yeah, so I would like to see much more emphasis, but it's a big problem to solve because it needs a top-down approach and it needs the grassroots approach. And I guess at Plant-Based Health Professionals, we're focusing on the grassroots, getting the public and the health professionals educated so that they can implement this knowledge in their own lives and share it with their communities and

also with their patients of course there's so many great community groups out there like Maiden Hackney and Life After Hummus who are teaching these key skills on cooking and how to make nutritious food but then of course the other end we do need government policy to make healthy food accessible affordable to everyone. You know, a healthy diet is a human right at the end of the day. And we know that comparing prices of processed food compared to the fresh fruits and vegetables, and ideally, we would want it organic as well, it becomes unaffordable for a significant proportion of our society. So we need the whole food system, as they say, from farm to fork to change. And as I think about farm, we had the National Food Strategy Plan published

earlier in the year. I mean, I don't know whether that's actually going to be implemented. It had some great recommendations, but it clearly showed that we use more than 70% of our farmland in the UK to raise animals for food. And that's if we call it food. We don't need animals for food. What we need is to be growing fruits and vegetables and legumes. Whereas we spend most of our agricultural resources, land, water, farmers, you know, to produce animal sourced foods, and then we're left with importing more than 50% of our fruits and vegetables. Less than 50 years ago, we would have had so many more orchards and fruit and vegetable growing, but our farming has really, really moved predominantly to animal agriculture. So that's going to require a shift. It's not insurmountable, but it's going to

really require a shift in our agricultural policy and ourountable, but it's going to really require a shift in our agricultural policy and our health policy. And for the two to talk, because as for now, they don't, right? Farming has nothing to do with our public health and the two departments don't seem to communicate at all. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada.

Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's b-o-b at l-i-b-s-y-n dot com. Absolutely. I mean, I have certainly found the last five or six years since we started our food

products business extraordinarily eye-opening. Almost all subsidies actually across the entire world go on foods that are actually harmful for our health, but also producing food that has no emulsifiers, that has no preservatives, that has only real food ingredients is so much more expensive and so much more complicated. And that absolutely, I don't think it's a message that most consumers understand, quite rightly, but it's very interesting to see. And you start to understand why people cut the corners, because there's a race to the bottom with pricing now, and that we've accepted we spend much less than 50% on our food than we did 30 years ago, because we just expect it to be so cheap and cheap food has consequences. So it's a

really, really interesting situation. As you said, it's obviously it's grassroots and top down that we absolutely need. And I think what you said there is so interesting. And I certainly have found it very eye opening over the last few years is how we've now accepted this as the normal, it's normal to take statins, all sorts medications and we just accept that that's part of the course and that we don't even realize I think at this point for so many of us that actually the way that we're living now it's not normal and it certainly wasn't normal just a few decades ago we've had such a sharp rise in the way that we address our lifestyles. And it's extraordinary. But so many questions to come out of what you were saying.

And I guess I know we'll have listeners who are flexitarians or still consume meat and fish and eggs, etc. And I know that I'm sure they'll be thinking, well, what's wrong? What's wrong with this? There's obviously also such conflicting information in the media as to what the right diet is. You've got ketogenic diet, for example, which people are talking about a lot, which I think is extraordinary. But why don't, A, why don't we need animal foods? And B, why do you think, and what does the evidence show us as to why they're potentially not good for our health? So we absolutely don't need animal foods, but I'm

also very honest in my approach in my personal life and with my patients that we don't need to be 100% plant-based to gain all the health benefits. We absolutely can be 100% and more and more people are adopting a healthy vegan or 100% plant-based diet and that's absolutely fine it's a great choice to make for your health but in answer to your question I mean I guess there's two aspects there's our personal health as individuals and as a society but there's also planetary health and the climate and ecological emergency is a health emergency and that is being highlighted more and more. So our diet has to address our own health, which we're all of course, keenly interested in, but it needs to

be sustainable for the future of the planet. Because if it's not our own personal health will and already is being impacted. And so as you say, that science has already been done, we had the Eat Lancet Commission on Food and Health published the planetary health plate or the planetary health diet. And it told us all, told us all globally, what was best for health and also would keep us within the boundaries of climate change. And that plate was 83%, if I'm not mistaken, if not 85% plant-based, allowing not essential, it clearly says not essential, but allowing for people to have that, as you say, flexitarian choice. Because like with everything, there is a dose effect and it's all about what you're eating instead of. So as I've

said already, and keep repeating, the only foods in the science that are associated with good health are the healthy plant foods. Everything else can be left to the side and comes down to a personal choice and then as a condiment on the plate. Because the nutrients that are associated with the best health are things like fibre. We know that plant protein, when you compare it to animal protein, has much better outcomes, even though we sort of think that protein is best from animals, you know, a narrative that's been spun and produced by the farming industry or the animal agriculture industry. That's just not true. There's specific differences in the makeup of

the plant protein and the animal protein. And actually, plant protein has a number of advantages, and it actually reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and ultimately improves your longevity and quality of life. So fiber, plant protein, the healthy fats. So when it comes to what type of fats you need to be eating, it's fine to eat the healthy fats, but they come from plant sources. It's the unsaturated fatty acids, things like nuts and seeds and avocado and healthy oils like extra virgin olive oil or rapeseed oil, which can be high in omega-3 fatty acids. Whereas the fats that you find in animal products are the saturated fats. They're the ones that are solid at room temperature. And we've got decades of science showing us that saturated

fat intake is directly and in a linear fashion related to our blood cholesterol level, which then in turn is the causal factor for cardiovascular disease, particularly heart disease, which remains the biggest cause of death globally. So those are the reasons. Plant foods has fiber, it has healthy fatty acids, the unsaturated sources, the plant protein is beneficial, and you avoid things like carcinogens, so cancer-causing agents that are found particularly in processed red meat, and may also be found in red meat, which is a probable carcinogen. So, you know, it's about what you're consuming and what you're avoiding. And we've already talked about inflammation caused by animal foods, which

to some extent can be counteracted by the plant foods you're eating, but you really need to push your consumption of healthy plant foods out to sort of 80, 90% to get all the health benefits. I have to say protein is the one that fascinates me every single time because there's such a myth that you can't have protein on a plant-based diet and I you know obviously you've got to be aware of b12 supplementation and vitamin d but obviously that's that's relevant to everyone but protein is one that in my mind is really quite straightforward and one of the myths that I think is very important to bust I think you you did that brilliantly there and Shireen I have to ask and I know it's a important to bust. I think you did that brilliantly there. And Shireen, I have to ask, and I know it's a really, really difficult topic, but I think obviously your

profession specialising in cancer, and I know from research I've seen that a plant-based diet does reduce total chance of incidence of cancer. Very difficult topic, obviously very emotional topic for people. And I really appreciate that. But I think it's, it would be a miss of me not to ask you about that research. Yeah, no, thank you. I mean, I spend my time in the field of cancer, really. And it shouldn't be difficult to talk about, because I think it's a topic that should really be empowering. You know, we've actually got to a situation where one in two people in the UK born after 1960 will get a cancer in their lifetime. So we need to be talking about it because it's going to affect at least half of us.

But I think the thing that's empowering is that four out of 10 cancers could be prevented. Now, this is not me as a vegan or plant-based eater saying this, this is stats right out of the World Cancer Research Fund and their guidelines for cancer prevention. So four out of 10 cancers could be prevented. And part of that cancer prevention guideline and international consensus is eating a diet. It says it clearly high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans, because once again, they're the only ones that have been associated with reducing your risk. And so we do need to focus in on that because most of us are not even eating five portions of fruits and vegetables a day. And our commonest cancers, so breast cancer, colorectal cancer and prostate cancer are some of the most preventable. So really, it should be a message of empowerment, because what we also know is that when the UK public has been surveyed,

less than 50% of people actually realize that a lack of fruits and vegetables, a lack of physical activity, and also consuming alcohol are actual causes of cancer. So we've got a big piece of education to do. And I think the importance for me professionally is also that this same type of diet is going to prevent heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol that like we've talked about. And if you come and see me with your cancer, without any of these illnesses, it makes my life so much easier. Like it's really hard to treat people for their cancer when they have these underlying chronic conditions. And these chronic conditions, again, it's not really discussed as much,

but just having kidney disease, heart disease, type 2 diabetes elevates your risk of getting cancer because of that shared mechanism of inflammation. So part of prevention of cancer is preventing those additional or common chronic conditions. And again, I think that those links are not necessarily made when we're giving sort of health promotion information to the public and even to health professionals. So I think we have so much we could do when we come to trying to reduce the burden of cancer. And, you know, just as an example of the kind of disconnect between the knowledge and us implementing it in healthcare systems, I've been having conversations for years with my hospital trust about removing processed

red meat from the hospital. You know, on the one hand, we know that processed red meat causes colorectal cancer and increases the risk of other cancers. In the UK, processed red meat consumption is thought to contribute to more than 5,000 cases of colorectal cancer a year. Yet you can walk into my hospital and buy a bacon sandwich or a ham sandwich or eat sausages and bacon as your fried breakfast. So, you know, we're missing out on key opportunities to educate health professionals, but also to educate the public in terms of reducing personal risk and risk at a population level. I think that's the most extraordinarily powerful example, actually. And I think it's the one that gets me every time that it is classified as a carcinogen

by the World Health Organization. As you said, that's not you with your personal interest in veganism or plant-based diet hat on, that's set by the World Health Organization. And I certainly see that as something that I find extraordinary health organization and i certainly see that something that i find extraordinary and i've certainly noticed that as well having become a parent it's people not sure about raising plant-based children or vegetarian children but you know children's parties and everywhere we go they seem to be served carcinogens as though that's a normal approach too which is you know and i'm not i'm not saying that to make anyone feel guilty. I just think it's very, it's a very powerful example of, to me, the disconnect that we have between the evidence and our day-to-day life. And I do find it quite extraordinary. But on this topic of

empowerment and this kind of more anti-inflammatory preventative way of living our lives, obviously, we've got diet, but with your lifestyle medicine hat on what other aspects of lifestyle medicine can we look at and start to think about in our day-to-day that we would see true health benefits from? There's six main pillars of lifestyle medicine or healthy lifestyle habits that we talk about probably the concept is much broader than that but alongside diet it's regular physical activity and the minimum we should be doing is 150 minutes of moderately vigorous activity a week. So that's sort of half an hour a day. We should be making sure we have adequate and restorative sleep and focusing in on sleep hygiene.

So most studies show that sort of seven to nine hours a night is a good amount of sleep to have and then doing those things that support you to have a good night's sleep like avoiding toxins such as alcohol and also caffeine too late in the day and making sure you've exercised well during the day to then have your good sleep and avoiding devices and and you know the usual screen time prior to going to sleep. It's managing stress, you know, we don't think about it often, but just that chronic psychological stress also has an adverse impact in a similar way as physical stress or inflammation. So that's relevant to cancer as well, you know, reducing stress and psychological stress can improve your outcomes. But on an everyday level, just taking that time for that 10-15 minutes a day just to reduce your stress hormones in your outcomes but on an everyday level just taking that time for that 10-15 minutes

a day just to reduce your stress hormones in your body whatever way works for you whether it's spending time in nature you know reading a book sitting quietly meditating listening to a mantra just bringing your mind back into the present it's also about avoiding toxins and these are becoming more prevalent really and I think you know all of the lockdown has meant that we're sort of reaching more for alcohol and smoking is still prevalent in our society. So, you know, definitely avoiding tobacco. And unfortunately, there is no safe amount of alcohol to consume. So I think that's we need to be honest with that messaging. Alcohol doesn't have a role in health promotion and it's best to avoid and then obviously having loving relationships actually out of all of those factors we know from the blue zones work of dan butner that social connections and being part of a tribe and a

community really probably is the single most impactful factor predicting health and longevity so spend time with people that care about you that you care about whether they are human or non-human animals it doesn't matter. I love that it's so extraordinarily powerful and I think relationships ones is so nice and such a brilliant example and I know we touched on it earlier that it's so easy to get overly focused on one meal one moment but actually it's this holistic approach that's so important and yeah managing stress and and really cultivating those relationships that matter to you in your life whether that's with three people or 30 people obviously we're so different in that regard and I wondered as we

started to to wrap up Shireen if you could share three take-homes for our listeners the three things that you wish absolutely everyone knew about the power of a plant-based diet to transform our health. Yeah that's a tough one to limit it to three but I think to be aware of the knowledge that the science is clear there's a lot of misinformation purposeful misinformation but it is quite clear that the closer you get to a hundred percent plant-based diet the better your health will be and it really does have the power to prevent and manage and sometimes reverse some of our most common chronic illnesses so you know to take back that control and shift as much as you can towards a minimally processed plant-based diet and then to add variety I think included, we get used to just buying the

same handful of fruits and vegetables and whole grains every week on our favorites list in the supermarket. But really try and add in a new fruit or vegetable into your diet once a week, once a month, and try and increase the variety of the foods that you choose. And just to know that it really is never too late. My 78 year old father managed to reverse his pre-diabetes during the first lockdown in the UK. So it really is never too late to adopt a healthy plant-based diet. So make today the day that you make that transition and shift. I love that. And I have two last questions for you. The first of them actually is just picking up on point number one and I should have asked you this earlier actually which is the question of plant-based versus vegan because I think what's

interesting is obviously what you're talking about is the importance of within the plant-based diet really really filling up with the whole grains and all the colorful fruits and veg whereas I think what we're seeing quite a lot of this move towards vegan is we're actually seeing this huge rise of ultra processed plant based food. And I think it's just an interesting question and something that I think is important to clarify that what you're talking about here, whether you call it plant based or vegan, but it is about the plants versus the meat mimics. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think vegan think veganism as we know is a social justice movement it centers the animals it's not about necessarily the food you eat it's about the food you don't eat so avoiding all animal products but we're talking about eating a diet that's full of fruits and

vegetables and whole grains and beans and nuts and seeds and that you cook predominantly from scratch and you minimize as much as you can. I mean, you know, we have to accept our modern lifestyles that, you know, some level of convenience food will always crop in. But that shouldn't be the focus. The focus should be about cooking from scratch, you know, healthy meals, and they don't have to be complicated or take a long time, but they really do need to focus on the correct ingredients. Love that. And finally, our podcast is called Delicious Ways to Feel Better. And I wondered if you could share with our listeners the one thing that you do every day to feel better.

For me, I think my pleasure really is eating fruit. And at the moment, I look forward to eating my persimmon, which is in season at the moment because it's so delicious so the one thing I couldn't give up that I love every day is truly eating fruit. Beautifully simple well Shireen thank you so much for your time today it has been extraordinarily insightful and I have to say I couldn't recommend as well following plant-based professionals on Instagram as well because one of the things that Shireen does there obviously alongside her colleagues is bring forward all the evidence sharing all the papers all the research and really starting to understand the science behind everything we've talked about today so I think for anyone who feels a bit skeptical is this really true I couldn't recommend

having a look at that more and having a look at the website and everything else that Shireen does but thank you all so much for listening today. We will be back again next week. Next week, we're actually diving deep into gut health and the fundamental role that that plays in our health, which I'm very much looking forward to. Otherwise, have a lovely day, everyone. Thank you for listening.

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