SPH hosts more than 700 for vegetarian congress
The School of Public Health’s 5th International Congress on Vegetarian Nutrition turned a thorough scientific eye toward plant-based eating.
More than 700 individuals from greater than 40 countries gathered at LLU to hear lecturers from across North America, Europe, and South America—including several who presented new, unpublished research.
The event opened March 4 with a lecture by David Heber, MD, PhD, of the University of California at Los Angeles, who spoke about cancer and nutrigenomics, and it closed March 6 with a symposium on the relationship of food production to climate change. In between, experts discussed the vegetarian diet’s relationship to everything from diabetes and cardiovascular disease to aging.
“The 2008 vegetarian congress reestablished the relevance and significance of the Seventh-day Adventist health message to contemporary society. This message was delivered in the spirit of evidence-based science and flawlessly conveyed in what was clearly a world-class event,” says David Dyjack, DrPH, CIH, dean of the School of Public Health.
Previous congresses were held in 1987, 1992, 1997, and 2002.
“Since 2002, the interest in plant-based diets, and particularly vegetarian diets, has increased,” says Joan Sabaté, MD, DrPH, chair of the congress and of the SPH department of nutrition. “We have seen a 60 percent increase in attendance this year as compared to six years ago. In addition, more public health practitioners are attending the event.”
As in previous years, the proceedings of the 2008 congress will be published in a special supplement to The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
