"How a Plant-Based Diet Can Help Reduce Racial Health Disparities"
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the death rate for African Americans
was as much as six times higher than white America.
The higher Black pandemic deaths placed a harsh spotlight on their
longstanding higher mortality and diminished longevity in general.
Unfortunately, diminished African American life expectancy
predates the COVID-19 pandemic by decades.
The Black-white death gap for women is about 3 years,
and for men closer to 5 years.
The COVID-19 death disparities may have to do with limited access
to healthy food in predominantly Black communities,
the housing density, the need to work or else,
the inability to practice social distancing,
but also the underlying burden of ill health.
Increased COVID-19 mortality and complications occur more often
in individuals with pre-existing conditions like hypertension,
obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease,
comorbidities that are more prevalent in African Americans.
More high blood pressure, more diabetes, more strokes,
and more likely to die at early ages from all causes put together.
The question is why? Why do Black Americans
live sicker and die younger than their white counterparts?
Well, one big factor is socioeconomic status.
In the United States, race is closely tied to class,
with African Americans about twice as likely to be living in poverty.
On average, education levels are lower as well; however, even
among African Americans whose socioeconomic status is comparable
to that of whites, despite the higher education and more
socioeconomic resources, health outcomes are still poorer.
Part of that has to do with lifestyle behaviors.
For example, fewer than 5% of African American adults
met physical activity guidelines.
Smoking rates are actually comparable,
though African Americans tend to be exposed
to more second-hand smoke and have lower quit rates.
This may be because they're more likely to use menthol cigarettes,
which enhance the addictive potential of nicotine.
Why menthol? Because tobacco companies target the marketing
of mentholated products to African Americans.
Black lives... Black lung.
Similarly, if you look at food messages on African American television shows,
not only does Black prime time contain a greater number of food commercials,
African American audiences may be receiving nearly 3 times as many
advertisements for low-nutrient junk such as candy and soda.
That may be one reason why African Americans tend to consume
fewer fresh fruits and vegetables and are more likely to eat junkier foods.
Of course, where are you going to get those fresh fruits and vegetables?
There are fewer supermarkets located in Black neighborhoods
compared with white neighborhoods, as in four times fewer supermarkets.
What Black neighborhoods do excel in though is fast food.
Predominantly Black neighborhoods have 60% more fast food restaurants
per square mile compared to predominantly white neighborhoods.
Now, of course, dietary behaviors alone do not fully explain
the significant differences in diet-related disease patterns
between racial groups.
There are differences in employment and poverty and home ownership
and healthcare access, all of which can affect outcomes.
But while there are certainly many social and economic factors such as
racism and income inequality that contribute to health disparities,
there is good evidence that simply eating a more plant-based diet
could help eliminate disparities in cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Here's the diabetes data.
Even after controlling for education, income, physical activity,
and even BMI, non-Blacks eating strictly plant-based diets
had 57% lower odds of diabetes,
and among Black vegans, it was even more striking, 70% lower odds.
And that was after taking BMI into account.
So even at the same weight, Black vegans had 70% lower odds
of diabetes than Black omnivores.
And the racial disparity is only about half that, 36%.
So the increased risk of diabetes among Black participants
was on the order of one-third, while the protection afforded
by vegan diets in this subgroup was about 70%.
Even just a vegetarian diet that includes still eating dairy and eggs
may more than counteract the racial disparity in diabetes risk.
And they're not the same weight. African Americans have higher
obesity rates, cutting their life spans by six years.
But Black vegetarians and vegans have less than half
the risk of obesity, compared to those who eat meat,
and this is after adjusting for differences in physical activity.
So even at the same exercise levels, those eating more plant based
had but a fraction of the obesity risk.
High blood pressure.
In African Americans, hypertension is the most significant contributor
to their increased cardiovascular disease burden and mortality.
But Black vegetarians and vegans combined had 44% lower odds
of hypertension, an important finding for Black individuals
where hypertension is so prevalent, with no benefit found for those
who cut out all other meat, but continued to eat fish.
And the same thing found for total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol:
cutting odds in half among Black vegetarians and vegans.
As with non-Blacks, the researchers conclude,
"these results suggest that there are sizeable advantages
to a vegetarian diet in Black individuals."
What about vegetarians versus vegans?
The title gives it all away: "Cardiovascular Disease
Risk Factors are Even Lower in African American Vegans..."
This is something we've known about when
Caucasian vegans have been compared to vegetarians.
However, it was not known whether African American vegans
exhibited a more favorable cholesterol profile until now.
Significantly lower LDL cholesterol in vegans.
Now, of course, the vegans were also significantly slimmer:
on average normal weight as opposed to the over-weight vegetarians.
But even after taking that into account,
those eating more plant based had significantly lower cholesterol.
So there's tremendous potential for plant-based diets
to promote health among Blacks living in the United States.
In fact, they may have an even greater benefit.
For example, African Americans have an excess burden
of chronic kidney disease, not only because they have more
high blood pressure and diabetes, but there are genetic factors:
8% to 12% of African Americans are carriers of the sickle cell trait,
which places them at significantly higher risk of kidney disease.
So while Blacks represent a relatively small fraction of the US population,
they account for more than a third of all patients on dialysis
due to chronic kidney disease.
And that's where plant-based diets can come in: shown to protect
against both chronic kidney disease development as well as progression.
Three-quarters of Blacks are lactose intolerant, too,
so would again stand to benefit even more from eating plant based.
It is unacceptable that for decades, the American healthcare system
has failed African Americans and other minority communities
in terms of helping to prevent some of our leading killers.
But that just makes it all the more important for them
to take the reins of their own health destiny.