A Vicious Circle

Last week, some colleagues and I attended a Nutrition Symposium: 'Nutrition and Heart Disease: Let's take the DIE out of DIET'

The event, hosted by Raw Events Australia, featured a keynote presentation by Dr Kim Williams (M.D., MACC, FAHA, MASNC, FESC), American College of Cardiology 2015-2016 President, and Chief of Cardiology at Rush University Medical Center, USA.  It also included presentations on up-to-date research and evidence-based practice on the leading lifestyle factor to influence chronic disease outcomes by obstetrician Dr Alphonse Roex and paediatrician Dr Heleen Roex. It concluded with two very moving patient case studies from heart transplant and heart attack survivors (and thrivers!), George Younan and Adam Guthrie.

As a long term vegan, the event was of particular interest to me personally. It reinforced my strong belief that good nutrition sourced from a plant-based diet is essential to good health, and the presentations throughout were backed up by research paper after research paper verifying the importance of plant-based foods versus the dangers of those sourced from animals.

Aside from my personal interest however, it was particularly relevant to our work at Humane research Australia, as whilst poor health is the reason that so many animal experiments are conducted, the perceived necessity would not be so apparent if we focused on prevention rather than cure. Indeed an image shown at the event (pictured above right) summed up the situation perfectly – (We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet).

The theme of this event reminded me of a presentation I did some time ago titled “A Vicious Circle” and prompted me to revisit that presentation with the intention of updating some of the figures previously presented. 

You see, what’s always astounded me is what I refer to as a vicious circle. We humans exploit billions of animals every year so that we can consume their flesh and by products.  The physical, emotional and psychological suffering we inflict upon these victims is unimaginable – artificial insemination, castration, beak trimming, confinement of factory farming, separation of mothers and offspring, crude transportation and brutal slaughter. And this is to provide us with meat, dairy, eggs etc., the consumption of which leads to many health problems including diabetes, heart disease and some cancers; and instead of focusing on the cause of these problems we exploit millions more animals in a futile attempt to cure these ailments through cruel animal experiments. (Check out that graphic again!)

Let’s have a look at the data.

A snapshot of human health

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there were 159,052 deaths registered in Australia in 2015.[1]

They list the ten leading causes of death as follows:

Cause of death	No. of deaths
Ischaemic heart diseases	19,777
Dementia, including Alzheimer disease	12,625
Cerebrovascular diseases	10,869
Trachea, bronchus and lung cancer	8,466
Chronic lower respiratory diseases	7,991
Diabetes	4,662
Colon, sigmoid, rectum and anus cancer	4,433
Blood and lymph cancer (including leukaemia)	4,412
Heart failure	3,541
Diseases of the urinary system	3,433

According to Australia’s Health 2016 – a biennial report published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare - “A large proportion (31%) of the [health] burden experienced by the population could be prevented by reducing the exposure to modifiable risk factors.”[2]

Acknowledging that major risk factors of chronic disease are often lifestyle related, including smoking, alcohol consumption and insufficient exercise, the report also states: “Excess weight, especially obesity, is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, some musculoskeletal conditions and some cancers. As the level of excess weight increases, so does the risk of developing these conditions. In addition, being overweight can hamper the ability to control or manage chronic disorders.”

It further states: “Most (just over 90%) fail to consume the recommended amounts of vegetables each day and about 50% do not consume the recommended amounts of fruit. This is important because people with low intakes of fruit and vegetables have higher risks of certain chronic diseases.”[3]

Each of these risk factors related to lifestyle choices can be eliminated, meaning that the current leading causes of death are largely preventable.

Various sources including the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine also point to the consumption of animal products as a major contributing factor to the onset of heart disease, various forms of cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis.

Financial burden on our health care system.

“There were over 1.1 million hospitalisations where cardiovascular disease (CVD) was recorded as the principal and/or additional diagnosis in 2014–15, according to the AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database. This represents 11% of all hospitalisations in Australia.”[4]

Heart Research Australia states that “CVD is the most expensive disease in Australia costing about $5.9b (in 2004\05).”[5]

“There were over 1 million hospitalisations where diabetes was recorded as the principal and/or additional diagnosis in 2014–15, according to the AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database. This represents 10% of all hospitalisations in Australia”[6]

Diabetes Australia states “The total annual cost for Australians with type 2 diabetes is up to $6 billion [including healthcare costs, the cost of carers and Commonwealth government subsidies].”[7]

Added to these healthcare costs is the publicly funded $780 million in grant money (much of which is used to fund animal experiments) awarded to researchers by the NHMRC in 2012[8] in an attempt to cure these ailments.

Why, if we can greatly reduce the incidence of these diseases through lifestyle modification, do we persist with research that subjects millions of animals to often painful experiments?

We have other ways of addressing these issues:

Prevention – education about smoking, healthy eating, exercise, safe sex.

Rehabilitation – for users of drugs and alcohol, which would subsequently decrease the rate of depression and suicide.

Improved traffic conditions - driving skills, road conditions, signage and policing of speeding and drug and alcohol users would help reduce the road toll.

Higher investment into these strategies collectively has the potential for saving many more lives than medical research could ever achieve.

If our government is truly concerned about achieving a healthy society then our taxes would clearly be better utilised on the above. A healthier society would also be far less of a burden on our hospital and health care systems.

Are we therefore wasting precious resources – time and millions of dollars – and at the same time causing rather than eliminating illness and suffering? Certainly this is the case for the 6 million laboratory animals used each year, but so too, it seems, is the case for our unhealthy society.

It seems apparent that we need to get off this merry-go-round of exploiting animals through intensive farms, crude transportation, slaughter for food and degradation of their environment, and then exploiting even more animals in laboratories by subjecting them to painful experiments in an attempt to cure us of the ills that our own exploits have contributed to.

Together, and by adopting a more holistic approach, the use of non-animal methodologies and better health education will break the vicious cycle and guarantee far less suffering - for both humans and for animals.

For further information about animal experiments: Please visit www.HumaneResearch.org.au
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[1] http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/C67A858BA00CB846CA2568A9001393C6?Opendocument

[2] AIHW 2016. Australia's health 2016. Australia's health no. 15. Cat. no. AUS 199. Canberra: AIHW.

[3] http://www.aihw.gov.au/chronic-disease/risk-factors/

[4] http://www.aihw.gov.au/cardiovascular-disease/hospital-care/

[5] https://www.heartresearch.com.au/assets/files/Heart_Research_Australia_Fact_Sheet_Sept_2012.pdf

[6] http://www.aihw.gov.au/diabetes/hospital-care/

[7] https://static.diabetesaustralia.com.au/s/fileassets/diabetes-australia/e7282521-472b-4313-b18e-be84c3d5d907.pdf

[8]NHMRC research funding dataset 2010-2019.