The Harms Associated with Eating More Southern-Style Food

Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

“African Americans have a higher burden of cardiovascular disease and diabetes than other American ethnic groups.” But recent evidence indicates that eating a plant-based diet may help eliminate such health disparities, as I explored previously in my video How a Plant-Based Diet Can Help Reduce Black-White Health Disparities. African Americans as a group tend to have the highest reported meat consumption, and the lowest vegetable consumption. Part of this is access, but this article detailing the experience of a Morehouse lifestyle medical clinic noted that there also appears to be an issue with aspects of the African American food culture.

Enter the REGARDS study: “The Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke Study: Objectives and Design.” The study found that regardless of where African Americans live in the United States, they are much more likely to consume what the researchers called a “Southern diet,” which is a dietary pattern “characterized by added fats, fried foods, eggs, organ meats, processed meats, and sugar-sweetened beverages.” They found that this type of dietary pattern mediates the majority of the racial disparity. “[A]dherence to the Southern [dietary] pattern increased stroke risk by 39 percent in Black Americans. In contrast, the greatest benefit was seen among participants who followed a more plant-based dietary pattern, which conferred a 29 percent lower stroke risk.”

It’s the same thing with heart failure. Eating more plant-based was associated with a 41 percent lower risk of heart failure, while the Southern dietary pattern was associated with a 72 percent higher risk, and this is after controlling for things like education and income.

Death from kidney disease; it’s the same thing. Eating more plant-based is linked to a lower risk of mortality, whereas eating closer to the Southern diet was associated with a greater risk of kidney disease mortality. Those eating more Southern-style diets likewise had a 56 percent higher hazard of acute heart disease.

This finding of this study was particularly interesting: “Diet patterns and risk of sepsis in community-dwelling adults: a cohort study.” Sepsis is the syndrome of body-wide inflammation triggered by infection, and is a major public health problem. That’s how an infection can kill you. Now, we know diet plays a vital role in immune health, but its association with sepsis was unclear. But in the study, a Southern pattern of eating was associated with higher risk of sepsis as well, particularly among Black participants.

What about cognitive function? Once again, greater consumption of the Southern dietary pattern was associated with worse outcomes, lower scores on the assessments of each of the cognitive domains, like learning and memory, whereas greater consumption of the plant-based pattern was associated with higher scores. You can see the data on learning in the video. The more plant-based people ate, the better they were at a learning task. Meanwhile, the more Southern style people ate, the worse they were at learning. It’s the same thing with memory. Better the more plant based; worse the more Southern style. It is therefore possible that the increased prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in African Americans could be partially reduced via dietary modification.

It’s easy for privileged me to tell people to eat healthier, but isn’t it expensive to eat plant-based? Uh, have you seen the price of beans? There is this common misconception that plant-based diets are more costly than animal-based ones; so, proper education will be needed. A vegetarian diet could result in approximately $750 per year in savings. So, healthier and cheaper. What would you do with an extra $750 in your pocket, not to mention all the healthcare cost savings? I mean, “a plant-based dinner consisting of red beans, brown rice, collard greens, sweet potato, and cornbread could feed a family of four for under $12 or $3 per person.” Check it out. Some of the healthiest foods on the planet are some of the cheapest foods. Such a meal would not only be cost-effective, but nutritious, providing a mountain of nutrition plus a host of antioxidants to protect against various diseases like heart disease and cancer.

Here’s the save-$750-bucks-a-year-eating-more-plant-based study. Why? Because you’re cutting out meat/poultry/seafood. When one considers total grocery costs, animal products can be the most expensive components, costing more than double the cost of a serving of vegetables or legumes like beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils.

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• Rooke J. Advancing health equity with lifestyle medicine. Am J Lifestyle Med. 2018;12(6):472-5.
• Howard VJ, Cushman M, Pulley L, et al. The reasons for geographic and racial differences in stroke study: objectives and design. Neuroepidemiology. 2005;25(3):135-43.
• Carnethon MR, Pu J, Howard G, et al. Cardiovascular health in African Americans: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2017;136(21):e393-423.
• Shikany JM, Safford MM, Newby PK, Durant RW, Brown TM, Judd SE. Southern dietary pattern is associated with hazard of acute coronary heart disease in the reasons for geographic and racial differences in stroke (Regards) study. Circulation. 2015;132(9):804-14.
• Judd SE, Gutiérrez OM, Newby PK, et al. Dietary patterns are associated with incident stroke and contribute to excess risk of stroke in black Americans. Stroke. 2013;44(12):3305-11.
• Sterling SR, Bowen SA. The potential for plant-based diets to promote health among blacks living in the United States. Nutrients. 2019;11(12):2915.
• Lara KM, Levitan EB, Gutierrez OM, et al. Dietary patterns and incident heart failure in U.S. adults without known coronary disease. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2019;73(16):2036-45.
• Gutiérrez OM, Muntner P, Rizk DV, et al. Dietary patterns and risk of death and progression to ESRD in individuals with CKD: a cohort study. Am J Kidney Dis. 2014;64(2):204-13.
• Gutiérrez OM, Judd SE, Voeks JH, et al. Diet patterns and risk of sepsis in community-dwelling adults: a cohort study. BMC Infect Dis. 2015;15:231.
• Pearson KE, Wadley VG, McClure LA, Shikany JM, Unverzagt FW, Judd SE. Dietary patterns are associated with cognitive function in the REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (Regards) cohort. J Nutr Sci. 2016;5:e38.
• Nutaitis AC, Tharwani SD, Serra MC, et al. Diet as a risk factor for cognitive decline in african americans and caucasians with a parental history of alzheimer’s disease: a cross-sectional pilot study dietary patterns. J Prev Alzheimers Dis. 2019;6(1):50-5.
• Flynn MM, Schiff AR. Economical healthy diets (2012): including lean animal protein costs more than using extra virgin olive oil. J Hunger Environ Nutr. 2015;10(4):467-82.

Motion graphics by Avo Media

• African Americans
• Alzheimer’s disease
• animal products
• antioxidants
• beans
• Black Americans
• cardiovascular disease
• cardiovascular health
• chickpeas
• chronic diseases
• cognition
• collard greens
• cost savings
• diabetes
• eggs
• frying
• greens
• heart disease
• kidney disease
• lentils
• lifespan
• longevity
• memory
• mortality
• Plant-Based Diets
• processed foods
• rice
• split peas
• stroke
• sweet potatoes
• vegans
• vegetarians