Research
Macro partitioning
Isocaloric replacement of 3% energy from low-quality carbohydrates or saturated fat with plant protein is associated with significantly lower total, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality.
Replace 3% of your daily energy intake from refined carbohydrates and saturated fats with plant protein sources like beans, lentils, nuts, and whole grains. This simple substitution is associated with a 10% lower risk of death from all causes.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Notably, isocalorically replacing 3% energy from low-quality carbohydrates with plant protein was associated with 10% (HR: 0.90; 95% CI: 0.89, 0.91), 11% (HR: 0.89; 95% CI: 0.86, 0.91), and 4% (HR: 0.96; 95% CI: 0.94, 0.98) lower risks of mortality from all causes, all CVDs, and all cancers, respectively.
Why this rating
Large prospective cohort, long follow-up, but observational design.
Source
Low‐carbohydrate diets, low‐fat diets, and mortality in middle‐aged and older people: A prospective cohort study
Yimin Zhao et al. · Journal of Internal Medicine · 2023
DOI 10.1111/joim.13639
cohort · n=371159Cited 25×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Adherence to a healthy low-carbohydrate diet (low low-quality carbs, high unsaturated fat, high plant protein) is associated with marginally lower total mortality (HR 0.95) in middle-aged and older adults, whereas overall or unhealthy LCDs (high saturated fat/animal protein) increase mortality risk.Good
- Adherence to a healthy low-fat diet (low saturated fat, high high-quality carbohydrates, high plant protein) is associated with significantly lower total (HR 0.82), cardiovascular (HR 0.84), and cancer (HR 0.82) mortality in middle-aged and older adults.Good
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