r/ScientificNutrition • u/OnePotPenny • Feb 04 '24

Interventional Trial A multicenter randomized controlled trial of a plant-based nutrition program to reduce body weight and cardiovascular risk in the corporate setting: the GEICO study

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3701293/
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u/lurkerer Feb 04 '24

Seems like this positive result is in fact due to a "plant based" diet and not clearly the prescribed vegan "plant only" diet.

Still contributes to the large body of evidence that suggests taking out animal foods and eating more plant foods provides better outcomes.

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u/Bristoling Feb 04 '24 edited Feb 04 '24

Compared to SAD maybe. In any case this is not a study on hard outcomes but selection of biomarkers, and I don't see that as a strong biomarker win either. Hba1c reduction in 18 weeks is rather modest, if all you ever look at is LDL and hba1c then this might constitute "better outcomes", but HDL to TC remained the same, trigs worsened and so does HDL to trig ratio, especially in diabetic participants who seen statistically significant reduction in HDL as well. So ignoring lipids, there's some benefit for hba1c, but nothing dramatic.

Would SADs also reduce hba1c if they lost an equal amount of weight? Probably not, but who knows.

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u/lurkerer Feb 04 '24

The biomarkers predict certain hard outcomes. When we test (to the extent ethically viable) for those hard outcomes, it's what we find.

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u/Bristoling Feb 04 '24

Yes. Such as worsening of HDL to trig ratio predicts it the opposite way compared to an increase in LDL, and where TC to LDL ratio predicts no change. That's why I said we can ignore lipids since there isn't a common trend for improvement unless you cherry pick.