What's the best way to stay healthy in the face of so much conflicting nutrition information?

Well, ideally you would go to the source, the gold standard, the purviewed medical literature and read through the stacks of the latest medical journals.

But who's got time for that? I do!

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

Did you know that plant-based diets are gaining in popularity among athletes?

In our first story, we discover why folks are drawn to plant-based diets for athletic performance and recovery.

Consumer interest in anything plant-based has surged over the last few years and athletes are no exception.

While in the past, meat was seen as an irreplaceable performance-enhancing food,

today the trend is developing the opposite direction, thanks to part two,

documentaries like The Game Changers, which I was honored to play a role as a scientific advisor.

Several high-profile athletes from heavyweight champion boxes to tennis players have tried fueling with plants.

Athletes have increasingly been adopting plant-based diets not only for the related health benefits,

but for perceived improvements in endurance performance. In fact, even by 2016, there are reports of up to a third of ultra-endurance runners, for example, shunning meat.

Increasing plant-based foods may boost vasodilatory, meaning artery dilating,

antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of the diet, which can lead to improved blood flow,

reduced oxidative stress and inflammation, and thus theoretically enhance endurance performance,

reduced muscle damage, and speed recovery. Exercise itself can release free radicals that can also lead to

muscle fatigue, reduced athletic performance, and impaired recovery,

but the antioxidants concentrated in plant foods can help extinguish them.

Shifting to a dietary pattern with more plants and less animal-source food has been shown to attenuate inflammation.

A systematic review of meta-analysis comparing common biomarkers of inflammation

found that meat-free diets appear to be favorable in all cases, and not just inflammation, but immune status.

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