Higher Plant Protein Intake Reduces Mortality Risk

A diet consisting of high plant protein intake has been linked to significantly lower overall and cause-specific mortality, including cardiovascular disease mortality, according to a new study.

This study comes as response to the recent public health recommendation of a high protein diet for improved overall health and aimed to determine whether plant- or animal-based protein had an increased impact on health and longevity.

The researchers utilized data from 416,104 individuals (237,036 men and 179,068 women) who responded to a food frequency questionnaire on dietary information, including types of protein intake, from the US National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study that took place from 1995 to 2011.

During the 16-year observation period, 77,614 deaths were analyzed. After consideration of confounding factors, the researchers found that a diet consisting of higher plant protein intake was associated with reduced overall mortality. This finding was consistent between both men and women. This finding was also consistent regardless of smoking status, diabetes, fruit consumption, vitamin supplement use, and self-reported health status.

The researchers also found an inverse relationship with overall mortality for those who replaced 3% of their plant protein intake with animal protein (both men and women had a risk decreased by 10%). The same relationship was found to be true of cardiovascular disease mortality, with an 11% lower risk in men and 12% lower risk in women.

Further findings indicated that substitution of plant protein for egg protein resulted in a 24% lower risk in men and 21% lower risk in women, while substituting red meat protein for egg protein resulted in a 13% lower risk in men and 15% lower increase in women.

“In this large prospective cohort, higher plant protein intake was associated with small reductions in risk of overall and cardiovascular disease mortality. Our findings provide evidence that dietary modification in choice of protein sources may influence health and longevity,” the researchers concluded.

—Leigh Precopio

Reference:

Huang J, Liao LM, Weinstein SJ, Sinha R, Graubard BI, Albanes D. Association between plant and animal protein in-take and overall and cause-specific mortality. JAMA Intern Med. 2020;80(9):1173-1184. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.2790