The best diet for health – part 2

Watch this series of four video lessons and read through the downloadable article on ‘How to help patients transition to a healthy, sustainable plant-based diet’ in the ‘downloads and additional information’ lesson. After finishing this video series, answer the discussion task by navigating to the Comments section located at the bottom of the page in the final lesson of this section.

In Part 2 of this video series, Shireen walks through the following:

  • The Mediterranean diet;
  • The PREDIMED study reanalysed;
  • The Green Mediterranean diet;
  • The Mediterranean diet vs low fat healthy plant-based diet; and
  • Inflammatory vs anti-inflammatory diets.

Note: this is an overview of the evidence for your benefit. You don’t need to know this level of depth on every aspect of diet to be an effective medical nutrition prescriber.

About your presenter

Dr Shireen Kassam is a Consultant Haematologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at King’s College Hospital, London with a specialist interest in the treatment of lymphoma. She is also a Visiting-Professor at University of Winchester, Hampshire, where she has developed and facilitates the UK’s first University-based course on plant-based nutrition. In 2023 she launched a course on lifestyle medicine for cancer.

Shireen is passionate about promoting plant-based nutrition for the prevention and reversal of chronic disease and for maintaining optimal health after treatment for cancer. In 2019 she became certified as a Lifestyle Medicine Physician and is also a CHIP facilitator.

Shireen founded Plant-Based Health Professionals UK in 2018, a non-profit, membership organisation whose mission is to provide evidence-based education on whole food plant-based nutrition.

Shireen qualified as a doctor in 2000. During her training, she completed a PhD, which investigated the role of selenium in sensitising cancer cells to chemotherapy. Shireen has published a number of peer-reviewed papers in the fields of lymphoma and nutrition. Her first book, Eating Plant-Based, Scientific Answers to Your Nutrition Questions, co-authored with her sister Zahra, was published in January 2022. She has also co-edited the textbook Plant-Based Nutrition in Clinical Practice, published in September 2022.

Find Plant-Based Health Professionals UK on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

References

All references are available in a single PDF, which can be downloaded from the ‘References and further resources’ lesson.

1. Trichopoulou A, Bamia C, Trichopoulos D. Anatomy of health effects of Mediterranean diet: Greek EPIC prospective cohort study. BMJ. 2009;338:b2337.

2. Estruch R, Ros E, Salas-Salvadó J, Covas M-I, Corella D, Arós F, et al. Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease with a Mediterranean Diet supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil or nuts. N Engl J Med. 2018;378(25):e34.

3. Martínez-González MA, Sánchez-Tainta A, Corella D, Salas-Salvadó J, Ros E, Arós F, et al. A provegetarian food pattern and reduction in total mortality in the Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea (PREDIMED) study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2014;100 Suppl 1:320s-8s.

4. Tsaban G, Yaskolka Meir A, Rinott E, Zelicha H, Kaplan A, Shalev A, et al. The effect of green Mediterranean diet on cardiometabolic risk; a randomised controlled trial. Heart. 2020.

5. Yaskolka Meir A, Rinott E, Tsaban G, Zelicha H, Kaplan A, Rosen P, et al. Effect of green-Mediterranean diet on intrahepatic fat: the DIRECT PLUS randomised controlled trial. Gut. 2021;70(11):2085-95.

6. Barnard ND, Alwarith J, Rembert E, Brandon L, Nguyen M, Goergen A, et al. A Mediterranean diet and low-fat vegan diet to improve body weight and cardiometabolic risk factors: a randomized, cross-over trial. J Am Nutr Assoc. 2022;41(2):127-39.

7. Satija A, Bhupathiraju SN, Spiegelman D, Chiuve SE, Manson JE, Willett W, et al. Healthful and unhealthful plant-based diets and the risk of coronary heart disease in U.S. adults. J Am Coll Cardio. 2017;70(4):411-22.

8. Kane-Diallo A, Srour B, Sellem L, Deschasaux M, Latino-Martel P, Hercberg S, et al. Association between a pro plant-based dietary score and cancer risk in the prospective NutriNet-santé cohort. Int J Cancer. 2018;143(9):2168-76.

9. Kim H, Caulfield LE, Garcia-Larsen V, Steffen LM, Grams ME, Coresh J, et al. Plant-based diets and incident CKD and kidney function. Clin J Am Soc Nephrol. 2019;14(5):682-91.

10. Satija A, Bhupathiraju SN, Rimm EB, Spiegelman D, Chiuve SE, Borgi L, et al. Plant-based dietary patterns and incidence of type 2 diabetes in US men and women: results from three prospective cohort studies. PLOS Medicine. 2016;13(6):e1002039.

11. Baden MY, Liu G, Satija A, Li Y, Sun Q, Fung TT, et al. Changes in plant-based diet quality and total and cause-specific mortality. Circulation. 2019;140(12):979-91.

12. Baden MY, Shan Z, Wang F, Li Y, Manson JE, Rimm EB, et al. Quality of plant-bsased diet and risk of total, ischemic, and hemorrhagic stroke. Neurology. 2021;96(15):e1940-e53.

13. Mazidi M, Kengne AP. Higher adherence to plant-based diets are associated with lower likelihood of fatty liver. Clin Nutr. 2019;38(4):1672-7.

14. Tabung FK, Smith-Warner SA, Chavarro JE, Wu K, Fuchs CS, Hu FB, et al. Development and validation of an empirical dietary inflammatory index. J Nutr. 2016;146(8):1560-70.

15. Li J, Lee DH, Hu J, Tabung FK, Li Y, Bhupathiraju SN, et al. Dietary inflammatory potential and risk of cardiovascular disease among men and women in the U.S. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2020;76(19):2181-93.