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Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods

Food choices are shifting globally in ways that are negatively affecting both human health and the environment. Here we consider how consuming an additional serving per day of each of 15 foods is associated with 5 health outcomes in adults and 5 aspects of agriculturally driven environmental degrada...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Clark, Michael A, Springmann, Marco, Hill, Jason, Tilman, David
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6859310/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31659030
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906908116
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author Clark, Michael A
Springmann, Marco
Hill, Jason
Tilman, David
author_facet Clark, Michael A
Springmann, Marco
Hill, Jason
Tilman, David
author_sort Clark, Michael A
collection PubMed
description Food choices are shifting globally in ways that are negatively affecting both human health and the environment. Here we consider how consuming an additional serving per day of each of 15 foods is associated with 5 health outcomes in adults and 5 aspects of agriculturally driven environmental degradation. We find that while there is substantial variation in the health outcomes of different foods, foods associated with a larger reduction in disease risk for one health outcome are often associated with larger reductions in disease risk for other health outcomes. Likewise, foods with lower impacts on one metric of environmental harm tend to have lower impacts on others. Additionally, of the foods associated with improved health (whole grain cereals, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, olive oil, and fish), all except fish have among the lowest environmental impacts, and fish has markedly lower impacts than red meats and processed meats. Foods associated with the largest negative environmental impacts—unprocessed and processed red meat—are consistently associated with the largest increases in disease risk. Thus, dietary transitions toward greater consumption of healthier foods would generally improve environmental sustainability, although processed foods high in sugars harm health but can have relatively low environmental impacts. These findings could help consumers, policy makers, and food companies to better understand the multiple health and environmental implications of food choices.
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spelling pubmed-68593102019-11-21 Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods Clark, Michael A Springmann, Marco Hill, Jason Tilman, David Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Biological Sciences Food choices are shifting globally in ways that are negatively affecting both human health and the environment. Here we consider how consuming an additional serving per day of each of 15 foods is associated with 5 health outcomes in adults and 5 aspects of agriculturally driven environmental degradation. We find that while there is substantial variation in the health outcomes of different foods, foods associated with a larger reduction in disease risk for one health outcome are often associated with larger reductions in disease risk for other health outcomes. Likewise, foods with lower impacts on one metric of environmental harm tend to have lower impacts on others. Additionally, of the foods associated with improved health (whole grain cereals, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, olive oil, and fish), all except fish have among the lowest environmental impacts, and fish has markedly lower impacts than red meats and processed meats. Foods associated with the largest negative environmental impacts—unprocessed and processed red meat—are consistently associated with the largest increases in disease risk. Thus, dietary transitions toward greater consumption of healthier foods would generally improve environmental sustainability, although processed foods high in sugars harm health but can have relatively low environmental impacts. These findings could help consumers, policy makers, and food companies to better understand the multiple health and environmental implications of food choices. National Academy of Sciences 2019-11-12 2019-10-28 /pmc/articles/PMC6859310/ /pubmed/31659030 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906908116 Text en Copyright © 2019 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Biological Sciences
Clark, Michael A
Springmann, Marco
Hill, Jason
Tilman, David
Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods
title Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods
title_full Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods
title_fullStr Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods
title_full_unstemmed Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods
title_short Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods
title_sort multiple health and environmental impacts of foods
topic Biological Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6859310/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31659030
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906908116
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