This plant compound could lower your risk of heart disease and diabetes, according to new research

Eating a more plant-focused diet has numerous science-backed benefits: healthier aging, lowering colorectal cancer risk, and could even reduce the amount of dangerous chemicals in your blood.

Within those healthy plant foods are superfood compounds like antioxidants that can reduce inflammation and phytosterols that help lower cholesterol. New research, which is not yet peer reviewed and presented at the American Society for Nutrition’s conference in Orlando on Tuesday, reveals that eating more of the latter is linked to lower risk of chronic disease and better indicators of health.

Using data from over 200,000 U.S. adults (79% of whom were women), researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health showed that eating more phytosterols—cholesterol-lowering compounds found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds—was linked with reduced inflammation and lowered risk of developing cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.

While previous studies have demonstrated that phytosterols can lower LDL or “bad” cholesterol, most clinical trials have used high doses of phytosterols—far beyond what you could eat through diet alone. However, this new study is among the first to show the benefits of phytosterols as part of a regular diet.

Participants answered food frequency questionnaires to determine their total phytosterols intake and for three specific compounds. During a follow-up period of up to 36 years, over 20,000 participants developed Type 2 diabetes, and almost 16,000 developed heart disease. Those who had the highest phytosterol intake were 9% less likely to develop heart disease, and 8% less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.

The participants with the highest phytosterols intake were eating about four to five servings of vegetables, two to three servings of fruit, two servings of whole grains, and half a serving of nuts per day.

“Our findings support the dietary recommendation of adhering to healthy plant-based dietary patterns that are rich in vegetables, fruits, nuts and whole grains,” said lead author Fenglei Wang, research associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “These findings can help people make informed dietary choices.”

Higher phytosterol consumption was also associated with better insulin regulation, in addition to differences in the gut microbiome that could support healthy metabolism.