Vegetarian and Plant-Based Diets in Health and Disease Prevention

Vegetarian and Plant-Based Diets in Health and Disease Prevention examines the science of vegetarian diets and their nutritive impact on human health. Because plant-based diets exclude animal food products to differing degrees in natural populations around the world, the Editor and contributors have taken care to consider both positive and negative impacts of such diets. Because of the inherent difficulty in identifying the specific contribution to the diet as compared to the many other factors that are associated with the fact to follow a vegetarian diet, the book presents in details the full context associated with vegetarian diets. The book analyses the literature to precise the relations between vegetarian diets and the different health-related parameters and disease risks that they may impact, and it details the relation with the intake of different nutrients and other substances through vegetarian diets, and the resulting nutritional status in connection with health. Vegetarian and Plant-Based Diets in Health and Disease Prevention is structured in sections to clarify the approach. The first section describes the complexity of vegetarian diets and their strong associations with factors that impact health. Information about regional, cultural, religious variation gives an international overview. The second section focuses on the main dietary characteristics of vegetarian diets and presents what is known between those specific characteristics and health. The third section presents all the evidence between vegetarian diets taken as a whole and specific health and disease issues. Section four presents the population specific issue with vegetarian diets throughout life. Section five ends the book with a nutrient-specific analysis presenting the intake and status in nutrients and other dietary substances in vegetarian diets. Provides a balanced evidence-based approach to analyze the positive and negative aspects of vegetarianismCovers virtually all aspects of the vegetarianism and its impact on human healthGathers together multidisciplinary data to explain the general context and scope while also addressing the complexity of the subject head onAddresses the different vegetarian diets including geographical and cultural variations of vegetarianism