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SOURCES

Below are sources and references for information presented in the film, as well as other related and supplemental information, generally organized in the same order as the sections of the film.

​

You can also click on the following links to jump to a specific section below:

​

 

Please note that the information in the film is based on what was available at the time of production. Some figures have and will change over time, and new studies are always being published. For example, when filming began in 2017, the human population was 7.5 billion. However, when the film was released in 2020, the population had risen to 7.8 billion people and is continuing to increase.

 

We will periodically update and add more sources to this page as new information and studies become available.

THE SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION

Sixth Mas Extinction

“BIOLOGISTS HAVE CLASSIFIED OUR TIME AS THE SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION IN EARTH'S HISTORY.”

Screen Shot 2020-06-15 at 3.22.15 PM.png

"OVER ONE-HALF OF ALL WILD ANIMALS ON OUR PLANET HAVE DISAPPEARED

IN JUST THE LAST FORTY YEARS.”

"POLLINATORS HELP TO PRODUCE 75% OF OUR DIFFERENT CROP SPECIES.”

"THE BIGGEST CAUSE OF EXTINCTIONS IS HABITAT DESTRUCTION.”

"HABITAT LOSS IS THE NUMBER ONE DRIVER OF BIODIVERSITY LOSS"

"THE LIVESTOCK SECTOR IS BY FAR THE SINGLE LARGEST USER OF LAND ON THE PLANET,

AND IT IS THE MAJOR DRIVER OF DEFORESTATION"

"LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS OCCUPY A STAGGERING 45% OF THE GLOBAL SURFACE AREA"

"IF WE ALL WENT VEGAN, GLOBAL FARMLANDS COULD BE REDUCED BY MORE THAN 75%, AN AREA OF LAND EQUIVALENT TO THE UNITED STATES, CHINA, EUROPEAN UNION AND AUSTRALIA COMBINED"

(shown in the closing sequence at the end of the film)

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION

Ocean Acidification

"A THIRD OF ALL THE CARBON DIOXIDE (OR CO2) THAT WE'RE RELEASING INTO THE ATMOSPHERE

GETS ABSORBED BY THE OCEAN WHERE IT TURNS INTO CARBONIC ACID"

"WE'VE PUT HUGE AMOUNTS OF CO2 INTO THE ATMOSPHERE IN A VERY SHORT PERIOD OF TIME"

annual-co-emissions-by-region.png

"THE OCEAN'S AVERAGE pH ALREADY DROPPED FROM 8.2 TO 8.1 SINCE PRE-INDUSTRIAL TIMES,

AND SCIENTISTS ESTIMATE THAT IT WILL DROP FURTHER BY THE END OF THE CENTURY

TO AN AVERAGE pH OF 7.8"

"OCEAN ACIDIFICATION IS ALREADY OUTSIDE THE BOUNDS OF NATURAL VARIABILITY"

"OCEAN PHYTOPLANKTON ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ONE-HALF OF THE WORLD'S OXYGEN PRODUCTION"

"THE FURTHER CHANGES IN PHYTOPLANKTON THAT ARE PROJECTED IF OCEAN ACIDIFICATION

AND WARMING CONTINUE ARE COMPLETELY UNPRECEDENTED"

PLASTIC POLLUTION

Plastic

"WITH A BUSINESS-AS-USUAL SCENARIO, BY 2050

THERE WILL BE MORE PLASTIC IN THE OCEAN THAN FISH"

"IT'S A MAN-MADE SUBSTANCE FIRST CREATED IN 1907.

BUT NOW, BARELY A CENTURY LATER, IT'S LITERALLY EVERYWHERE"

Screen Shot 2020-06-17 at 10.57.28 AM.pn

World Plastics Production 1950 - 2015

"MOST PLASTIC IS NEVER RECYCLED EITHER;

IN FACT, A LOT OF IT CAN'T BE RECYCLED, EVEN IF WE WANTED TO"

"MORE THAN 8 MILLION METRIC TONS OF PLASTIC FIND THEIR WAY TO THE OCEAN EVERY YEAR

...THE EQUIVALENT OF DUMPING 1,440 GARBAGE TRUCKS

OF PLASTIC INTO THE SEA EVERY SINGLE DAY"

"IN SOME PLACES, LIKE THE NORTH PACIFIC GYRE,

THEY FOUND THERE WAS SIX TIMES MORE PLASTIC THAN PLANKTON"

"IF YOU'RE EATING SEAFOOD, YOU'RE PROBABLY ALSO EATING QUITE A BIT OF PLASTIC TOO...

A RECENT STUDY...ESTIMATED IT COULD BE AROUND 11,000 TINY PIECES OF PLASTIC

PER PERSON PER YEAR"

"WE DON'T KNOW HOW EATING ALL THIS PLASTIC WILL AFFECT HUMAN HEALTH

[BUT WE'VE] SEEN THAT THE NANOPLASTICS, WHICH ARE THE VERY SMALL PLASTIC PARTICLES,

CAN ACTUALLY CROSS CELL MEMBRANES IN SOME FISH...

AND CAN ACCUMULATE IN ORGANS LIKE THE BRAIN, TESTICLES AND LIVER,

AND CAUSE PROBLEMS WITH THE REPRODUCTION, IMMUNE SYSTEM AND BEHAVIOR "

  • AA Koelmans, E Besseling and WJ Shim. "Nanoplastics in the Aquatic Environment. Critical Review." Marine Anthropogenic Litter. 2015: "As for membrane passage, [a study] used molecular simulations to assess the effect of nano-sized polystyrene on the properties of model biological membranes and concluded that the NPs [nanoplastics] could permeate easily into lipid membranes, which may affect cellular functions.... [A]dults accumulated the NPs [nanoplastics] mainly in the gills and intestine yet also in the brain, testis, liver and blood.... [N]anoplastics might interfere with the chemical communication among species, which would cause subtle behavioural disturbances in finding a mate or food, or in the avoidance of predators such as fish.”

"DISCARDED FISHING NETS AND GEAR ALSO LITTER THE OCEANS

TRAPPING COUNTLESS MARINE ANIMALS"

OVERFISHING

Overfishing

"MOST FISHING PRIOR TO 1950 WAS COASTAL....THAT CHANGED

AFTER WORLD WAR II BECAUSE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES [THAT]

MADE IT FEASIBLE TO FISH WAY OFFSHORE IN FISH POPULATIONS

THAT HAD NEVER BEEN FISHED BEFORE"

Sofia2020.png

"LARGER AND LARGER FRACTION OF THOSE FISH POPULATIONS IS BEING DEPLETED,

AND RIGHT NOW ABOUT 80% OR MORE ARE FULLY FISHED (MEANING THEIR FISHED TO CAPACITY)

OR THEY'RE OVERFISHED AND BEING DEPLETED"

Sofia2016.png

"SCIENTISTS FROM DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY PROJECTED THAT, BY THE YEAR 2048,

ALL FISHERIES WOULD BE PRACTICALLY EMPTY - IN OTHER WORDS,

IF WE CONTINUE BUSINESS AS USUAL, THEY'RE WARNING WE COULD HAVE VIRTUALLY

FISHLESS OCEANS IN JUST A FEW SHORT DECADES"

"ALTHOUGH FARMED FISH, OR AQUACULTURE, IS SOMETIMES TOUTED AS AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO COMMERCIAL FISHING, IN REALITY IT HAS ITS OWN SET OF VERY SERIOUS PROBLEMS

AND CAN STILL BE DETRIMENTAL TO BOTH WILD FISH AND ECOSYSTEMS"

  • RL Naylor, et al. "Effect of Aquaculture on World Fish Supplies." Nature. Jun. 29, 2000; 1017-24. doi: 10.1038/35016500: "Besides this direct impact on wild fish stocks, some aquaculture as currently practiced degrades the marine environment and diminishes the ecological life support services it provides to fish, marine mammals, and seabirds, as well as humans. These impacts include

    • Destruction of hundreds of thousands of hectares of mangrove forests and coastal wetlands for construction of aquaculture facilities

    • Use of wild-caught rather than hatchery-reared finfish or shellfish fry to stock captive operations, a practice that often leads to a high rate of discarded bycatch of other species

    • Heavy fishing pressure on small ocean fish such as anchovies for use as fish meal, which can deplete food for wild fish such as cod, as well as seals and seabirds

    • Transport of fish diseases into new waters and escapes of non-native fish that may hybridize or compete with native wild fish”

"WILD SALMON POPULATIONS HAVE BEEN SEVERELY AFFECTED BY LICE SPREAD FROM FISH FARMS"

"MANY FARMED FISH ARE ALSO CARNIVOROUS, MEANING THEY NEED TO BE FED WILD CAUGHT FISH"

  • RL Naylor, et al. "Effect of Aquaculture on World Fish Supplies." Nature. Jun. 29, 2000; 1017-24. doi: 10.1038/35016500: "Many people look to this growth in aquaculture to relieve pressure on ocean fish stocks, most of which are now fished at or beyond capacity, and to allow wild populations to recover. Production of farmed fish and shellfish does increase world fish supplies. Yet by using increasing amounts of wildcaught fish to feed farmed shrimp and salmon, and even to fortify the feed of herbivorous fish such as carp, some sectors of the aquaculture industry are actually increasing the pressure on ocean fish populations.”

POPULATION GROWTH

Human Populaton

"OUR SPECIES, MODERN HUMANS, HAS BEEN AROUND FOR ABOUT 200,000 YEARS,

AND IT TOOK US ALL THAT TIME TO REACH A POPULATION OF ONE BILLION,

WHICH WE FINALLY DID RELATIVELY RECENTLY IN THE EARLY 1800s"

"BUT TODAY, [IN] ONLY ABOUT 200 YEARS..., WE'VE MULTIPLIED SEVEN TIMES OVER;

WE'RE NOW MORE THAN 7.5 BILLION HUMANS AND

ON-TRACK TO HIT CLOSE TO 10 BILLION BY THE YEAR 2050"

Annual-World-Population-since-10-thousan

"EVERY YEAR WE'RE ADDING ABOUT 80 MILLION EXTRA PEOPLE TO THE PLANET,

AND THAT IS THE ABOUT THE POPULATION OF GERMANY"

"AT THE PACE WE'RE CURRENTLY GROWING OUR POPULATION, WE NEED TO BE BUILDING 63,000 NEW CLASSROOMS EVERY SINGLE WEEK...IF WANT EVERY CHILD TO HAVE ACCESS TO EDUCATION"

  • Calculation: Assuming an average classroom size of 25 children, using the global average global population growth of 1.5 million per week (83 million annual growth divided by 52 weeks), more than 63,000 additional class rooms are needed every week (i.e., 1,500,000 weekly average growth, divided by 25 average classroom size, equals 63,846 new classrooms needed).

"THE IMPACT OF HUMAN BEINGS ON THE PLANET DOUBLES EVERY SEVENTEEN YEARS;

THAT IS, IF YOU TAKE THE RATE OF POPULATION GROWTH AND ADD TO IT THE RATE OF

ECONOMIC GROWTH, AND PUT THOSE TWO THINGS TOGETHER,

WE MAKE TWICE THE IMPACT ON THE PLANET EVERY SEVENTEEN YEARS"

  • Calculation: With a 4.297% annual increase in total impact on the planet (i.e., 1.10% rate of population growth plus 3.197% rate of economic growth), the total impact more than doubles every seventeen years (reaching 204.47% total increase).

"TO SUPPORT THE PEOPLE WE HAVE TODAY, THE CURRENT ESTIMATE IS

YOU WOULD NEED ONE AND HALF EARTHS TO DO IT;

TO SUPPORT THE PEOPLE WE HAVE TODAY AT THE STYLE OF THE AVERAGE AMERICAN,

YOU OWULD NEED FOUR OR FIVE MORE EARTHS"

"PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS AROUND THE WORLD, SUPPORTING...FAMILY PLANNING SO THAT ALL WOMEN HAVE THE MEANS TO DETERMINE THE NUMBER AND SPACING OF THEIR CHILDREN, ENCOURAGING SMALL FAMILY NORMS, SUPPORTING ADOPTION EFFORTS, INCREASING EDUCATION, ERADICATING POVERTY, AND ABOLISHING HORRID PRACTICES LIKE CHILD MARRIAGES; ​THESE HUMAN RIGHTS EFFORTS ARE CRITICALLY IMPORTANT IN THEIR OWN RIGHT,

BUT THEY ALSO HAPPEN TO BE SOME OF THE MOST EFFECTIVE ACTIONS WE CAN TAKE

TO HELP SLOW OUR POPULATION GROWTH RATE"

  • "Health and Education." Project Drawdown. (website last visited Jun. 20, 2020): "Education lays a foundation for vibrant lives for girls and women, their families, and their communities. It also is one of the most powerful levers available for avoiding emissions by curbing population growth. Women with more years of education have fewer and healthier children, and actively manage their reproductive health.... Honoring the dignity of women and children through family planning is not about governments forcing the birth rate down (or up, through natalist policies). Nor is it about those in rich countries, where emissions are highest, telling people elsewhere to stop having children. When family planning focuses on healthcare provision and meeting women’s expressed needs, empowerment, equality, and well-being are the result; the benefits to the planet are side effects."

  •  J Podesta and TE Wirth. "Women’s Rights Issues are Climate Change Issues." The Washington Post. Jan. 23, 2018: "When we talk about stepping up to address climate change across the world, we rarely think of it in terms of women's rights. But if environmental activists really want to reduce emissions, raise living standards and build a more sustainable future, they cannot overlook the importance of reproductive rights and health.... Too many women in too many places, including the United States, still have unmet demands for access to family-planning resources. Estimates indicate that more than 200 million women want to prevent or delay pregnancy but aren't using effective contraception. Access to reproductive health services can ensure women have more autonomy over their lives and bodies and ultimately help move the world toward greater gender parity."

"EVERY CHILD A COUPLE HAS SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASES THE PARENTS' CARBON LEGACY"

(shown in the closing sequence at the end of the film)

CLIMATE CRISIS

Climate Crisis

"THE IMAGE WE USED...IS FROM A REAL LIFE CRATER IN SIBERIA,

THOUGHT TO HAVE BEEN FORMED BY A RECENT METHANE POCKET EXPLOSION

IN AN AREA THAT USED TO BE COVERED BY FROZEN PERMAFROST"

"THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF METHANE TRAPPED IN FROZEN PARTS OF OUR PLANET IS TRULY ENORMOUS;

THERE'S SEVERAL TIMES MORE METHANE TRAPPED BY ICE THAN THERE IS

IN THE ENTIRE ATMOSPHERE"

"[METHANE IS] AN EXTREMELY POWERFUL GREENHOUSE GAS;

IT'S AT LEAST 20 TIMES MORE POWERFUL THAN CARBON DIOXIDE IN TRAPPING HEAT FROM THE SUN"

  • G Vaidyanathan. "How Bad of a Greenhouse Gas Is Methane?" Scientific American. Dec. 22, 2015: "At issue is the global warming potential (GWP), a number that allows experts to compare methane with its better-known cousin, carbon dioxide. While CO2 persists in the atmosphere for centuries, or even millennia, methane warms the planet on steroids for a decade or two before decaying to CO2. In those short decades [rather than over a 100-year period as noted in the source cited immediately above], methane warms the planet by 86 times as much as CO2, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

"IF THIS ENORMOUS STORE OF FROZEN METHANE, OR A BIG PART OF IT, IS RELEASED INTO OUR ATMOSPHERE, IT COULD AMPLIFY THE DEGREE AND SPEED OF CLIMATE CHANGE"

  • C Welch "Arctic permafrost is thawing fast. That affects us all." National Geographic. Sept. 2019: "Arctic permafrost isn’t thawing gradually, as scientists once predicted. Geologically speaking, it’s thawing almost overnight. As soils like the ones at Duvanny Yar soften and slump, they’re releasing vestiges of ancient life—and masses of carbon—that have been locked in frozen dirt for millennia. Entering the atmosphere as methane or carbon dioxide, the carbon promises to accelerate climate change, even as humans struggle to curb our fossil fuel emissions."

"IN A  VERY SHORT PERIOD OF TIME, WE HAVE RAPIDLY INCREASED THE AMOUNT OF [GREENHOUSE GASES] IN OUR ATMOSPHERE ...THE AMOUNT CO2 IN THE ATMOSPHERE USED TO BE AROUND 280 PARTS PER MILLION (PPM) FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, UNTIL WE HAD THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, AND THEN IN A VERY SHORT PERIOD OF TIME, LESS THAN 300 YEARS, WE INCREASED THE CONCENTRATION TO OVER 400 PARTS PER MILLION TODAY"

  • N Jones. "How The World Passed a Carbon Threshold and Why It Matters." Yale Environment 360. Jan. 26, 2017: "[For] the last 800,000 years, ...ice cores show that CO2 concentrations stayed tight between 180 and 290 ppm, hovering at around 280 ppm for some 10,000 years before the industrial revolution hit.... But as humans kept digging up carbon out of the ground and burning it for fuel, CO2 levels sped faster and faster toward that target. In May 2013, at the time of the usual annual maximum of CO2, the air briefly tipped over the 400 ppm mark for the first time in several million years. In 2014, it stayed above 400 ppm for the whole month of April. By 2015, the annual average was above 400 ppm. And in September 2016, the usual annual low skimmed above 400 ppm for the first time, keeping air concentrations above that symbolic red line all year."

CO2.png

"ACCORDING TO THE UNITED NATIONS, ANIMAL AGRICULTURE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR

MORE HUMAN-CAUSED GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS THAN THE

ENTIRE GLOBAL TRANSPORTATION SECTOR COMBINED"

"THE LIVESTOCK SECTOR IS ALSO THE MAJOR DRIVER OF DEFORESTATION IN THE WORLD;

AND TREES ARE AN IMPORTANT CARBON DIOXIDE SINK,

MEANING THEY ABSORB AND SEQUESTER IT OUT OF OUR ATMOSPHERE"

"IN ADDITION TO CONTINUED DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF CLEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES, A MASS GLOBAL SHIFT AWAY FROM ANIMALS FOODS IS URGENTLY IS NEEDED AND WOULD HAVE A SIGNIFICANT AND ALMOST IMMEDIATE IMPACT IN ADDRESSING OUR CLIMATE CRISIS"

FOOD SECURITY

Food Security

"IF WE'RE AT THE HIGH OR EVEN MEDIUM [POPULATION] PROJECTION,

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN 9.5 AND 10.5 BILLION PEOPLE BY 2050,

WE WILL CLEARLY FACE A FOOD CRISIS"

  • "Food shortages could be most critical world issue by mid-century." Texas A&M AgriLife Communications - Science Daily. Apr. 17, 2014. Quoting Dr. Fred Davies, senior science advisor for the U.S. Agency for International Development's bureau of food security: "[R]esource limitations will constrain global food systems.... The increases currently projected for crop production from biotechnology, genetics, agronomics and horticulture will not be sufficient to meet food demand..... For the first time in human history, food production will be limited on a global scale by the availability of land, water and energy.... Food issues could become as politically destabilizing by 2050 as energy issues are today.”

"WITH OUR CURRENT POPULATION GROWTH AND THE CURRENT TRENDS OF A

GROWING MIDDLE CLASS WHO ARE CONSUMING MORE ANIMAL FOODS,

WE'LL NEED TO DOUBLE OUR CROP PRODUCTION BY THE YEAR 2050"

"FEEDING THE HUMAN POPULATION WITH ANIMAL FOODS IS TREMENDOUSLY INEFFICIENT;

ANIMAL FOODS REQUIRE A LOT MORE LAND, A LOT MORE WATER, A LOT MORE ENERGY,

AS COMPARED TO PRODUCING PLANT FOODS"

  • A Shepon, et al. "The Opportunity Cost of Animal Based Diets Exceeds All Food Losses." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Apr. 10, 2018: "[A]lthough the characteristic conventional retail-to-consumer food losses are ≈30% for plant and animal products, the opportunity food losses of beef, pork, dairy, poultry, and eggs are 96%, 90%, 75%, 50%, and 40%, respectively. This arises because plant-based replacement diets can produce 20-fold and twofold more nutritionally similar food per cropland than beef and eggs, the most and least resource-intensive animal categories, respectively.... Concurrently replacing all animal-based items in the US diet with plant-based alternatives will add enough food to feed, in full, 350 million additional people, well above the expected benefits of eliminating all supply chain food waste. These results highlight the importance of dietary shifts to improving food availability and security."

"GLOBALLY ABOUT 36% OF PLANT-BASED CROP PRODUCTION GOES TO FEED ANIMALS, BUT ONLY ABOUT 4% OF THAT IS ACTUALLY RETURNED TO OUR FOOD SYSTEM IN MEAT THAT WE EAT;

IN OTHER WORDS, THERE'S THIS HUGE CONVERSION INEFFICIENCY — WE'RE LOSING ABOUT 90% OF THE CALORIES AS WE GO FROM GRAINS TO MEAT"

"YOU HAVE TO FEED ABOUT 30 CALORIES TO A COW TO GET ONE CALORIE OF EDIBLE MEAT OUT"

As shown in the illustration below, the U.S. invests 719 Pcal feeding cows in order to produce 21 Pcal of beef, resulting in a 3% overall conversion efficiency (or about 34 calories invested in feed for each calorie of beef produced).

Conversion.jpg

"OF ALL THE CALORIES WE INVEST IN RAISING ANIMALS FOR FOOD, WE ONLY RECOVER A FRACTION,

ON AVERAGE ABOUT 12% IN THE FORM OF MEAT, DAIRY AND OTHER ANIMAL PRODUCTS"

"WE CAN DRAMATICALLY INCREASE THE AVAILABILITY OF FOOD IN THE WORLD

BY FEEDING OURSELVES WITH THE PLANTS DIRECTLY"

VEGAN DIETS

Vegan Diets

"THE LARGEST ORGANIZATION OF FOOD AND NUTRITION PROFESSIONALS IN THE U.S.,

THE ACADEMY OF NUTRITION AND DIETETICS, HAS LONG HELD THEIR OFFICIAL POSITION THAT BALANCED VEGAN DIETS ARE HEALTHY, NUTRITIONALLY  ADEQUATE, AND APPROPRIATE FOR INDIVIDUALS DURING ALL STAGES OF LIFE, INCLUDING PREGNANCY, LACTATION, INFANCY,

OLDER ADULTHOOD AND FOR ATHLETES"

"KAISER PERMANENTE, ONE OF THE LARGEST HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS IN THE COUNTY, IS LOOKING FOR WAYS TO MAKE PLANT-BASED DIETS FOR THEIR PATIENTS AND EMPLOYEES"

"RECENT CHAIR OF HARVARD'S DEPARTMENT OF NUTRITION, DR. WALTER WILLETT,

RECOMMENDS YOU 'PICK THE BEST PROTEIN PACKAGES BY EMPHASIZING

PLANT SOURCES OF PROTEIN RATHER THAN ANIMAL SOURCES'"

"DR. KIM WILLIAMS, RECENT PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CARDIOLOGY, VIGOROUSLY RECOMMENDS A PLANT-BASED VEGAN DIET TO BOTH HIS PATIENTS AND PHYSICIANS OVER ALL OTHER DIETS FOR OPTIMUM NUTRITION AND HEALTH"

  • A O'Conner. "Advice From a Vegan Cardiologist." New York Times. Aug. 6, 2014: "Dr. Kim A. Williams, the president-elect of the American College of Cardiology, often sees patients who are overweight and struggling with hypertension, Type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol. One of the things he advises them to do is to change their diets. Specifically, he tells them to go vegan.”

"THE RECENT OLYMPICS THAT HAPPENED IN RIO, THE ONLY U.S. MALE ATHLETE

WHO QUALIFIED FOR WEIGHTLIFTING FROM THE U.S. WAS VEGAN"

"SCOTT JUREK, THE [ULTRA-MARATHON] RUNNER WHO BROKE THE RECORD

FOR THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL, IS VEGAN"

  • L Darby. "The Real-Life Diet of the Vegan Who Can Run Hundreds of Miles, No Problem." GQ Magazine. Oct. 13, 2016: "[F]or almost two decades now, Jurek has been a vegan.... Jurek credits his diet for not only the length of his career—he's 41 now—but also his recovery time and lack of injuries. [Jurek] ran the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in a record-setting 46 days, eight hours and seven minutes. He’s also won the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon, the “world’s toughest foot race,” twice; the 153-mile long Spartathlon in Greece three consecutive times; and has taken first place in just about all the ultrarunning world’s most high-profile races.”

"WE GET ALL THE PROTEIN WE NEED FROM PLANTS;

IN FACT, PLANTS CAN ACTUALLY PROVIDE US WITH EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF PROTEIN"

nihms497174f1.jpg

From "figure 1" in cited study.

"THE FORMATION OF CHOLESTEROL PLAQUES INSIDE OUR

VESSELS IS UBIQUITOUS ON A WESTERN DIET,

AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE IS THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH

...AND THESE CHOLESTEROL PLAQUES START FORMING VERY EARLY IN OUR LIVES,

EVEN THOUGH THE ACTUAL HEART ATTACKS AND STROKES

USUALLY DON'T START HAPPENING UNTIL WE HIT MIDDLE AGE"

"AUTOPSIES OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS WHO DIED IN COMBAT IN THE KOREAN WAR,

WITH AN AVERAGE AGE OF 22..., FOUND THAT 77% OF THE SOLDIERS

ALREADY HAD PLAQUES OF CHOLESTEROL IN THEIR ARTERIES"

"WHEN YOU LOOK AT RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIALS...,

THE ONLY PATTERN OF EATING THAT'S BEEN SHOWN TO REVERSE HEART DISEASE, FOR EXAMPLE,

IS A PLANT-BASED DIET, ONE THAT DOESN'T HAVE ANIMAL PRODUCTS"

  • D. Ornish and K Williams, et. al. "Data Support that Diet Can Reverse Heart Disease." MedPage Today. Sep. 8, 2017: "In our randomized, controlled trials, we found a 40% average reduction in LDL (i.e., comparable to statins) in patients who were asked to consume a whole foods plant-based diet.... Randomized controlled trials conducted at the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and UCSF documented that patients with moderate to severe coronary heart disease who made these lifestyle changes showed statistically significant and clinically significant reversal of their coronary heart disease and its ischemic manifestations in all measures of coronary anatomy and physiology."

Figure 1 from the case study:

Coronary angiograms of the distal left anteriordescending artery before (left) and after (right) 32 months of a plant-based diet without cholesterol-lowering medication, showing profound improvement.

Screen Shot 2020-07-04 at 1.33.25 PM.png

"THERE IS ALSO A LOT OF COMPELLING DATA IN THE PUBLISHED LITERATURE THAT POINTS TO

PLANT-BASED DIETS BEING HELPFUL IN THE PREVENTION OF CANCER"

"BLOOD FROM THOSE EATING A PLANT-BASED DIET INHIBITED CANCER CELL GROWTH BY 70%,

BUT THE BLOOD OF THOSE EATING A REGULAR WESTERN DIET ONLY INHIBITED CANCER CELL GROWTH BY A MERE 9% — SO, THE BLOOD OF THOSE FOLLOWING A PLANT-BASED DIET WAS ALMOST 8 TIMES MORE POWERFUL AT INHIBITING THE GROWTH OF CANCER CELLS"

"ONE OF THE MECHANISMS BY WHICH ANIMAL PROTEIN IS THOUGHT TO INCREASE CANCER RISK

IS SOMETHING CALLED IGF-1 [INSULIN-LIKE GROWTH FACTOR-1]"

  • TJ Key. "Diet, Insulin-Like Growth factor-1 and Cancer Risk." Proc Nutr Soc. May 3,  2011: "Recent research in prospective studies with biobanks of stored blood samples has shown that the serum concentration of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) is positively associated with the risk for both breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men. It is also known that circulating IGF-1 concentrations can change in response to nutritional changes including energy and protein restriction, and some studies suggest that, even within well-nourished western populations, men and women with relatively high intakes of protein from dairy products have higher blood levels of IGF-1.”

"ANIMAL FOODS INCREASE OUR LEVELS OF IGF-1"

"THERE IS ALSO A DIRECT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOME CANCERS AND THE

PROBLEMATIC HORMONAL CONTENT THAT IS FOUND IN MEAT AND IN DAIRY"

"EVEN PEDIATRICIANS HAVE EXPRESSED CONCERN THAT SEXUAL MATURATION OF PREPUBERTAL CHILDREN COULD BE AFFECTED BY THE ORDINARY INTAKE OF COW MILK"

"THIS STUDY EXAMINED THE RATE OF FEMALE HORMONE RELATED CANCERS IN 40 COUNTRIES AND FOUND THAT 'MILK PLUS CHEESE MAKE THE GREATEST CONTRIBUTION TO THE INCIDENCE OF

OVARIAN CANCER' AND THAT 'MILK PLUS CHEESE MAKE THE

MOST SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION TO THE INCIDENCE OF UTERINE CANCER'"

"THERE ARE PLENTY OF PLANT-BASED SOURCES OF OMEGA-3 FATTY ACIDS

WITHOUT HAVING TO DEAL WITH UNHEALTHY ASPECTS OF FISH"

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