“A vegan or plant-based diet cannot prevent a person from developing COVID-19, but it may help support a healthy immune system. Plant-based diets can also decrease a person’s risk of obesity and chronic diseases. These are conditions that tend to worsen the outcome of COVID-19.” - Medical News Today
After a lot of denial, debates and skepticism, it is finally out in the open that going Vegan or following a strict plant-based diet is beneficial for your immune system. While turning Vegan is the choice of not consuming any animal products, be it for your wallet, bags, shoes, clothes etc.; plant-based diet mainly concerns what we eat and similarly excludes any and all animal-based products like milk, yogurt, ghee, butter, eggs, fish, meat etc. Both diets use alternative plant-based replacements for milk (Soy milk, Oat milk, Almond milk, Coconut milk), ghee (Vanaspati), butter (Cashew butter, Almond butter, Coconut butter), eggs (Pea or Soy protein, Pumpkin seeds as a rich source of protein) and so on. Some people also call it a Vegan diet. They are both one and the same thing.
Most of the scientific community today will agree that the Vegan/Plant-based diet helps in:
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Weight management and helps with weight loss
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Reducing the risks of developing heart diseases (India’s #1 silent killer)
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Lowering your risk of developing certain types of Cancers
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Effectively managing and even reversing conditions Hypertension and diseases like Type-2 Diabetes
The news of the century is this, that in our fight against communicable diseases such as COVID-19, what we need is a strong immune system; You probably guessed it already, a vegan, plant-based diet has actually proven to be beneficial in this regard too. Those who consume a plant-based diet have shown lower risks of developing severe responses to viral infections such as COVID-19.
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Author: Shrikanth Iyer, a lecturer at the Department of Multimedia and Mass Communication, Guru Nanak College, Mumbai. He is a budding clinical psychologist, a vegan, animal lover, who has a liking for research and non-fiction writing.