It’s the time of the year when quite a few off us cry off alcohol after a couple of days/weeks of indulgence and join in the dry January campaign but the rise in popularity of a vegan diet has collected momentum and some people are opting for a vegan diet as their New Year’s Resolution.
It could be argued it is the wellness industry’s new cash cow and it seems to be athletes’ latest choice, but scientists caution there’s still much we don’t know about the diet.
Katharina Wirnitzer was in the midst of training for the Bike Transalp race, one of the world’s toughest endurance events, when she began investigating whether a vegan diet was suitable for athletes.
The year was 2003 and veganism was a long way from the current boom, which has established it as one of the most in-vogue dietary trends. But Wirnitzer, a sports scientist at the University of Innsbruck, had become intrigued by the resurgence of ancient theories linking plant-based diets with improved athletic performance.
“The first athletes on strict plant-based diets were gladiators,” she says. “Roman scripts report that all fighters adhered to gladiatoriam saginam, which was based on plant foods, including large amounts of legumes, pulses and grains, and contained little or no animal protein.”
Now, almost two millennia later, Wirnitzer is one of a handful of researchers trying to get to the bottom of whether veganism could enhance an athlete’s chances of sporting success. Over the past decade, she has led the NURMI study, the broadest initiative so far investigating the effects of a vegan diet in high-performance, ultra-endurance sports.
NURMI is particularly timely because veganism’s association with various health benefits – from weight loss to decreased risk of inflammatory disease – has seen the diet soar in popularity in recent years, both amongst the general public and elite sportsmen. The most recent survey by the Vegan Society estimates that there are around 600,000 vegans in the UK – a fourfold increase over the past five years – while high-profile athletes from Lewis Hamilton to Jermain Defoe have begun experimenting with veganism.
However, despite the boom in veganism, even the most optimistic scientists caution that there is still much we do not understand about the diet. In particular, little is known about the long-term consequences of veganism and whether it does hold significant advantages over an omnivorous or vegetarian diet.
Portrayals of the diet can be partisan: the recent blockbuster Netflix documentary The Game Changers has since been tainted by revelations that the executive producers are cofounders of a vegan food company and that much of the evidence presented in the film is selective, low-quality and anecdotal. Moreover, as with so many dietary interventions, the search for the truth about veganism is often clouded by the potential financial gains – with predictions that the global vegan food market will be worth $24.3bn by 2026.
This is perhaps unsurprising. Whether it be the trendy city bars offering vegan wine, or the array of new products launching in supermarkets and health food stores, veganism is the wellness industry’s new cash cow. Market-research experts have already predicted that the value of the global vegan food market will reach $24.3bn by 2026. Vegan cheese alone is expected to develop into an industry worth nearly $4bn within the next five years.
So what do we really know about veganism and what it can do for our health?
The quest to reduce cardiovascular disease
At Sheffield Hallam University, David Rogerson has spent the past decade studying the effects of dietary interventions on physical health. He says that one reason veganism could be good for you is because it can protect against cardiosvascular diseases, by reducing obesity and lowering cholesterol. These chronic illnesses cost the UK around £9bn a year; veganism may be the solution.
“There’s growing evidence that reduced consumption of animal products, coupled with an increase in plant-based foods, seems to be good for our health,” says Rogerson. “This is perhaps due to these foods containing lot of antioxidant phytonutrients and nitrates, while some animal products contain lots of pro-inflammatory fats and lead to the production of a metabolite called TMAO, which has been linked to cardiovascular problems.”
The anti-inflammatory effect of plant-based foods is thought to be the reason why vegan diets appear to relieve symptoms of some auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. The tennis player Venus Williams, who suffers from Sjögren’s syndrome, credits turning vegan with mitigating the extreme fatigue associated with the condition, and with enabling her to continue competing at the highest level. But scientists warn that, so far, there have been so few studies of athletes that there is very little evidence to support them. Wirnitzer published a landmark 2014 paper that showed that a well-planned vegan diet meets the nutritional requirements of endurance athletes, but we still know virtually nothing about whether it is the optimum diet.
If you are considering changing your diet ensure you get professional advice from your doctor and a referral to a qualified nutritionist to ensure you don’t miss out on vital nutrients.
This article was taken in part from an excellent report featured on www.theguardian.com
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