But the new figures from Harvard suggest that at least 200,000 lives could be saved each year if people cut meat from their diets.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Unite to Cure Fourth International Vatican Conference in Vatican City, Dr Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard Medical School said: \u201cWe have just been doing some calculations looking at the question of how much could we reduce mortality shifting towards a healthy, more plant based diet, not necessarily totally vegan, and our estimates are about one third of deaths could be prevented.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nWhen these diets are properly constructed I think they are enormously powerful” Dr.<\/q>Neal Barnard<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s not even talking about physical activity or not smoking, and that\u2019s all deaths, not just cancer deaths.\u00a0That\u2019s probably an underestimate as well as that doesn\u2019t take into account the fact that obesity is important and we control for obesity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\n\n\u201cWhen we start to look at it we see that healthy diet is related to a lower risk of almost everything that we look at. Perhaps not too surprising because everything in the body is connected by the same underlying processes.\u201d<\/p>\n
B<\/span>ritish-born Professor David Jenkins, of the University of Toronto, who is credited with developing the\u00a0glycemic index<\/a>\u00a0which explains how carbohydrates impact blood sugar, also told the conference that the benefits of vegetarianism had been \u2018undersold.\u2019<\/p>\n