BACKGROUND: In research settings, plant-based (vegan) eating plans improve diabetes management, typically reducing weight, glycemia, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol concentrations to a greater extent than has been shown with portion-controlled eating plans.

Research studies have shown that plant-based diets confer cardiovascular and metabolic health benefits. Asian Indians (AIs) in the US (who have often followed plant-based diets) have elevated risk for chronic diseases such as diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity suggesting ethnic vulnerability that imply genetic and/or lifestyle causative links. This study explored the association between this ethnic group and diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome after controlling for demographics, acculturation, family history of diabetes, and lifestyle and clinical risk factors.

Vegan or vegetarian diets have been suggested to reduce type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk. However, not much is known on whether variation in the degree of having a plant-based versus animal-based diet may be beneficial for prevention of T2D. We aimed to investigate whether level of adherence to a diet high in plant-based foods and low in animal-based foods is associated with insulin resistance, prediabetes, and T2D. Our analysis included 6798 participants (62.7 ± 7.8 years) from the Rotterdam Study (RS), a prospective population-based cohort in the Netherlands.

SCOPE:Research is limited on diet challenges to improve health. A short-term, vegan protein diet regimen nutritionally balanced in macronutrient composition compared to an omnivorous diet was hypothesized to improve metabolic measurements of blood sugar regulation, blood lipids, and amino acid metabolism. METHODS AND RESULTS: This randomized, cross-over, controlled vegan verses animal diet challenge was conducted on 21 (11 female,10 male) healthy participants. Fasting plasma was measured during a 3-day diet intervention for clinical biochemistry and metabonomics.