The Expert Series (10): Poor diet is responsible for more deaths than smoking

In this edition of the Expert Series, RAC member Paul Appleby overviews recent research reported in The Lancet which suggests that poor diet is responsible for more deaths than smoking and the role a plant-based diet can have in reducing this risk.

It’s official: “suboptimal diet is responsible for more deaths than any other risks globally, including tobacco smoking, highlighting the urgent need for improving human diet across nations.” This was the finding a systematic assessment of diet and disease risk across 195 countries as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017, reported in The Lancet medical journal in early April 2019 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)30041-8).

The study found that in 2017, 11 million deaths and 255 million disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs; a measure of overall disease burden expressed as the number of years lost due to ill-health, disability or early death) worldwide were attributable to dietary risk factors. These figures represented 22% of all adult deaths and 15% of adult DALYs in 2017.  Cardiovascular disease (incuding heart attacks and stroke) accounted for most of the deaths and DALYs, followed by cancers and type 2 diabetes.  More than half of the diet-related deaths and two-thirds of the diet-related DALYs were attributable to just three of the 15 dietary risk factors considered: a high intake of sodium, mostly from salt (3m deaths; 70m DALYs), a low intake of whole grains (3m deaths; 82m DALYs) and a low intake of fruit (2m deaths; 65m DALYs).  These same three dietary risk factors, together with diets low in nuts and seeds and low in vegetables, were the leading causes of dietary deaths and disability across the globe.

In the UK, an estimated 14% (roughly 1 in 7) deaths are diet-related, amounting to 127 diet-related deaths per 100,000 people per year (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47734296), the biggest problems being a lack of whole grains, fruit, vegetables and nuts and seeds in the diet. Israel has the lowest diet-related death rate (89 per 100,000 per year) and Uzbekistan the highest (892 per 100,000 per year; ten times the rate in Israel). Although the UK lags behind some other Western European countries such as France, Spain, Belgium and Denmark, the country does reasonably well overall with the 23^rdlowest diet-related death rate.

Although the study data relate to countries rather than individuals, vegetarians and vegans would have few, if any, of the 15 dietary risk factors considered. In particular, veg*ns do not eat red or processed meat and are likely to have relatively high intakes of fruit, vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds, polyunsaturated fatty acids and dietary fibre, and, unless they eat a lot of processed food, low intakes of sugar-sweetened beverages, trans fatty acids and sodium (salt).  However, obtaining a high intake of calcium (at least 1 gram/day) and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (200-300 milligrams/day), both associated with a lower risk of diet-related disease, is more problematic for veg*ns, with dairy products and oily fish, respectively, prominent among the dietary sources.

By Paul Appleby. Re-published with permission from original article: https://oxveg.wordpress.com/2019/04/28/poor-diet-is-responsible-for-more-deaths-than-smoking/ 

The views expressed by our Research News contributors are not necessarily the views of The Vegan Society.