One of the twins ate vegan, the other ate meat – the result: bright

Anyone who is vegan or vegetarian knows this statement all too well: “Well, is that healthy?” The choice of a personal diet can sometimes lead to arguments at the family table. Vegans clearly have the scientific facts on their side, at least when it comes to climate balance and animal welfare. Meat eaters counter: Individual people alone cannot save the world – neither the climate nor the animals.

They also doubt whether a meat-free diet is healthy. In fact, various experts and laypeople have long been discussing which diet is really healthy. Recently, an influencer on Tiktok drew attention for pointing out an ingredient in vegan substitutes that is also used to make pasta.

Now, a new study from Stanford University on twins has yielded new results. A diet there has clearly proven to be healthier.

Many studies investigating healthy eating suffer from the problem that they do not take many confounding factors into account. In plain language: it is difficult to investigate whether a specific aspect of nutrition is responsible for a specific response in the body – for example losing weight or increasing vitamin levels. Also because different bodies react differently to certain nutritional influences.

Stanford University has now conducted a study to avoid this mistake by examining identical twins. Of the 22 twins, one person should eat vegan and the other meat. As noted in a post on Stanford’s website, the study can rule out the possibility that different genes, upbringing and lifestyle are distorting the results.

The researchers checked the twins’ health values ​​at the start of the study, after four weeks and finally after eight weeks. The subsequent result was astonishing.

The study concluded that people who stopped eating meat were healthier after two months than before. Specifically, they had lower cholesterol and insulin levels and lower body weight. The researchers point out that all these factors contribute to a healthier cardiovascular system.

Through the vegan diet, the participants contributed to their health, with three important changes in particular: they consumed less saturated fat, but more fiber and therefore reduced their weight.

The researchers concluded that many people would benefit from a similar diet: “Most of us would benefit from a more plant-based diet,” recommends study leader Christopher Gardner.

However, Gardner also puts things into perspective: a purely vegan diet is not the most important thing for health. Eating more plant-based food would be sufficient. He has been ‘largely vegan’ for 40 years.

So back to the family discussion: most people, young and old, agree that it is healthy to eat less meat. But there is still often disagreement about how much meat consumption should be reduced in order to live a healthy life.