Reducing our environmental footprint and improving our health: greenhouse gas emission and land use of usual diet and mortality in EPIC-NL: a prospective cohort study

Abstract

BackgroundFood choices influence health status, but also have a great impact on the environment. The production of animal-derived foods has a high environmental burden, whereas the burden of refined carbohydrates, vegetables and fruit is low. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations of greenhouse gas emission (GHGE) and land use of usual diet with mortality risk, and to estimate the effect of a modelled meat substitution scenario on health and the environment.MethodsThe usual diet of 40011 subjects in the EPIC-NL cohort was assessed using a food frequency questionnaire. GHGE and land use of food products were based on life cycle analysis. Cox proportional hazard ratios (HR) were calculated to determine relative mortality risk. In the modelled meat-substitution scenario, one-third (35 gram) of the usual daily meat intake (105 gram) was substituted by other foods.ResultsDuring a follow-up of 15.9 years, 2563 deaths were registered. GHGE and land use of the usual diet were not associated with all-cause or with cause-specific mortality. Highest vs. lowest quartile of GHGE and land use adjusted hazard ratios for all-cause mortality were respectively 1.00 (95% CI: 0.86-1.17) and 1.05 (95% CI: 0.89-1.23). Modelled substitution of 35 g/d of meat with vegetables, fruit-nuts-seeds, pasta-rice-couscous, or fish significantly increased survival rates (6-19%), reduced GHGE (4-11%), and land use (10-12%).ConclusionsThere were no significant associations observed between dietary-derived GHGE and land use and mortality in this Dutch cohort. However, the scenario-study showed that substitution of meat with other major food groups was associated with a lower mortality risk and a reduced environmental burden. Especially when vegetables, fruit-nuts-seeds, fish, or pasta-rice-couscous replaced meat.

Identification of data-driven Dutch dietary patterns that benefit the environment and are healthy

“…For example, dietary scenarios that primarily aim to lower dietary GHG emissions do not always result in improvements in nutritional quality or health outcomes (Payne et al 2016). In addition, no direct association was observed between diet-related GHG emissions and mortality risk in a previous study (Biesbroek et al 2014). However, adhering to a vegetarian or Mediterranean-style dietary pattern has been shown to be associated with lower environmental impacts and better health (Aleksandrowicz et al 2016;Hallström et al 2015;Nelson et al 2016).…”

“…To exclude dietary over and under reporters, participants in the highest and lowest 0.5% of the ratio of reported energy intake to basal metabolic rate were also excluded (n = 400). Participants with a self-reported history of cancer (n = 1645), diabetes (n = 793), myocardial infarction (n = 531), or stroke (n = 463) at baseline were excluded to include the same population as our previous publications (Biesbroek et al 2014;Biesbroek et al 2017). After these exclusions, 36,209 participants remained for analysis.…”

“…The LCA data, version 2014, was linked to the EPIC-NL FFQ data to calculate daily GHG emissions associated with the usual diet. A more extensive description of the calculation of environmental impact of the diet in EPIC-NL has been published previously (Biesbroek et al 2014). …”

Do low-carbon-emission diets lead to higher nutritional quality and positive health outcomes? A systematic review of the literature

“…We screened the title and abstracts of 2027 entries from four databases (FCRN Research Library, PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus) and three reference lists. From these, we identified sixteen studies (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33) that present data linking GHGE and nutritional information or health outcomes of 100 dietary patterns and yielding data on 346 cases of effects on nutritional quality or health outcomes of reduced-GHGE diets. Table 2 details the studies included in the current review.…”

“…Association between greenhouse gas emissions of diets and health outcomes Five studies reported the GHGE and health outcomes of diets (18,20,21,24,28) . Of these, two were based on reduced meat and/or dairy consumption and found consistent association between reduced GHGE and positive Are the GHGE data used relevant to the review question(s)?…”