Plant-Based Eating and Diabetes

Today is World Health Day. For over half a century, the World Health Organisation has been celebrating health on 7 April. Every year, a priority area of global public health concern is selected as the theme for World Health Day.

In 2016, the focus is diabetes.

Around 350 million people worldwide have diabetes – a figure predicted to more than double over the next 20 years.

Ninety per cent of these cases are of type-2 diabetes – which is directly affected by poor eating, physical inactivity and unhealthy bodyweight.

We previously saw very few cases of type-2 diabetes in children, but these are on the rise. In some countries, almost half of newly diagnosed cases occur in children and teens.

The good news is that type-2 diabetes is both treatable and preventable.

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Eating plant-based foods, combined with regular exercise, can help treat and even reverse type-2 diabetes – and this approach is being implemented by respected doctors around the world.

Plant-based foods tend to be lower in fat and are also free from cholesterol. In addition, they contain bountiful amounts of antioxidants, fibre and lipotrobes – all of which may protect against diabetes.

Eating meat and other animal-derived foods, on the other hand, has been associated with an increased risk of developing type-2 diabetes.

Some of the risk factors present in meat include trans fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, heme iron and specific animal proteins such as leucine.

Even consuming a single egg per week may almost double a person’s risk of developing the disease.

Please join us in enjoying some healthy, colourful plant-based meals this World Health Day. Not only will doing so benefit your own health, you’ll also be sparing the suffering of animals and helping to do your part to curb climate change, too!

Let’s make 2025 a historic year for animals

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