Health charity celebrates sixth year anniversary with six top health tips

Date: 2008-03-28

Health charity the Vegetarian & Vegan Foundation (VVF) which has become a leading voice on diet and health matters, celebrates its sixth anniversary next month (April).

To mark the occasion, senior nutritionist Amanda Woodvine explores six reasons why a veggie diet is fantastic for your health, and can transform your wellbeing for good.

EVERYONE seems to have a different view on vegetarians but the science is clear ¿ they have remarkably good health with low rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer and can expect to live up to six years longer!

Here are six reasons why:

1. It can help whittle down your waist. A large waistline puts you at a six times greater risk of stroke and doubles your risk of heart disease.

People who eat just one meat meal a day are 50 per cent more likely to put on weight around their middles than those who eat meat just a few times per week, according to the American Cancer Society. After checking on 75,000 people over a decade they found that the one food most associated with weight gain is meat. A low-fat veggie diet, on the other hand, produces better weight loss than Atkins, Weight Watchers or the Zone diet ¿ healthily and without ever feeling hungry. Check out the VVF's V-Plan Diet at www.vegetarian.org.uk (or call 0117 970 5190). It costs just £2.50 inc p&p.

1. Dodge diabetes. Eating meat six or more times per week gives you an almost fourfold chance of developing diabetes.

There is now plenty of evidence to show that a typical Western diet of meat, dairy and processed foods, together with a sedentary lifestyle, increases the risk of diabetes. Persistent organic pollutants (POPS) are a more recent risk factor. These man-made environmental poisons are stored in fatty tissues and have contaminated most of the food chain, particularly fat-containing foods such as milk, meat and oily fish.

1. Slim down. Numerous research studies have shown people who are vegetarian or vegan to be anywhere from six pounds to over two stones slimmer than their meat-eating counterparts, ie compared to people of the same height, age and socioeconomic group, who smoke and exercise a similar amount.

2. Chill out, go veggie. The danger of developing raised blood pressure (hypertension) increases by up to six times with obesity.

Vegetarians have much lower blood pressure than meat eaters. A low-fat veggie diet can cut the risk of high blood pressure by up to half. It is the totality of the diet that works, not any specific ingredient.

1. Healing hearts. Coronary heart disease is the most common cause of death in the UK; around one in six women and one in five men die from this disease.

With all heart-related diseases, veggies suffer less than meat eaters - and the more meat you eat, the more likely you are to end up with clogged arteries. Research shows that an animal-free diet can heal damage to the arteries. A low-fat, vegetarian diet eaten for just a year can reverse blockages, resulting in improved blood flow.

Vegetarians are less at risk of heart disease and have up to 50 per cent less chance of dying from it. If everyone in the UK went vegetarian, about 40,000 lives a year would be saved - perhaps a veggie diet should be available on prescription!

1. Arresting migraine. An estimated six million people in the UK are affected by migraine.

The national medical charity Allergy UK lists cheese (particularly stilton, brie, camembert and emmenthal) as the third commonest cause of food-induced migraine after alcohol and chocolate. Reduce your risk of migraine and other diseases by going dairy-free. Order the VVF's Being Dairy-Free pack for just £3 (inc p&p) by phoning 0117 970 5190. Or buy it online. Includes: It's easy to be dairy-free! (48 pages of great shopping advice and information on why dairy damages health); How to be dairy-free (20 vegan recipes) and Boning up on Calcium, the VVF's informative fact sheet.

Story by: Viva

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