Featured Image Credit: Jevon and John Whittington
Topics: Health, Food and Drink
Gerrard Kaonga
A pair of identical twins took completely different diets for an experiment - and this is what happened to their bodies.
You've probably wondered at some point whether it might be better for you to go vegan, even if it does seem like a few people have decided to ditch it.
Same goes for an entirely carnivorous diet - and given the tons of diets out there, like vegetarianism, pescatarianism or Keto, it's hard to pinpoint which is truly healthier for your body.
And if you went on social media, you would get a whole lot of people sharing their opinions on what you should eat.
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Well, this is where an experiment from Stanford University comes in handy.
Writing in a report in November of last year, Stanford Medicine investigated the idea that a vegan diet improves cardiovascular health and explained the key health benefits of both an omnivore diet and a vegan diet.
By conducting the experiment through using 22 identical twins, they were able to eliminate important factors such as genetic differences, upbringing and lifestyle choices.
“The trial, conducted from May to July 2022, consisted of 22 pairs of identical twins for a total of 44 participants,” the report explained.
The study was also part of a Netflix documentary You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment, which released last year.
Participants were given 21 meals of plant or meat-based food by a catering service while for the last four weeks, they prepared their own food.
And two of the twins that were involved in the study spoke to the New York Post and explained the big differences in their health after the 2 months.
Twins Jevon and John Whittington, 22, were both in impressive shape and cardiovascularly healthy before they began the study.
John, who went on the vegan diet, was able to lose significantly more visceral fat, which is known to be more dangerous in the long term.
John’s body fat was 11.1 percent, weighing in at 137.2 pounds with 0.37 pounds - almost precisely 6oz - of visceral fat, the kind of fat which develops around the center of the body.
Jevon, who was given the omnivore diet to follow, had nearly identical body fat ahead of the study – 11 percent, and weighed just over a pound more at 138.6 with 0.22 pounds of visceral fat.
The twins also worked out few times a week - focusing on cardio, weight training and interval training.
By the end of the study, John had lost 0.19 pounds of visceral fat from following his vegan diet - leaving him with just 0.03 pounds.
In comparison, Jevon’s visceral fat dropped by just one point from 0.22 to 0.21 pounds.
The vegan diet also resulted in a 20 percent drop in insulin levels and a 12 percent drop in bad cholesterols - while the meat-eating diet didn't impact John's health at all.
However, his meat diet allowed him to produce more muscle as Jevon bulked up on extra 7.1 pounds of muscle after the eight weeks, while his brother only gained 2.3 pounds.
After the study, Jevon said they 'cut back on meat and dairy', adding: "But it proved to us that we can continue to eat way we’re eating."