EAT-Lancet Planetary Diet Inversely Linked to Incident CKD Risk

MONDAY, Jan. 26, 2026 (HealthDay News) — The EAT-Lancet planetary diet, proposed to integrate human health and environmental sustainability, is inversely associated with the risk for incident chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a study published online Jan. 26 in CMAJ, the journal of the Canadian Medical Association.

Sisi Yang, M.D., from Nanfang Hospital in Guangzhou, China, and colleagues examined the association between the EAT-Lancet planetary health diet and the risk for incident CKD using data for 179,508 adult participants from the U.K. Biobank cohort without CKD at baseline. Adherence to the EAT-Lancet diet was assessed using four scoring methods.

The researchers found that 4,819 participants developed incident CKD during a median follow-up of 12.1 years. There was an inverse association between higher EAT-Lancet adherence and CKD risk across all four scoring methods: Stubbendorff, Kesse-Guyot, Yi-Xiang, and Knuppel (adjusted hazard ratios, 0.91, 0.92, 0.94, and 0.94, respectively). Participants with low residential green space exposure and those with the rs2010352 GG genotype showed a stronger association. Significant inverse associations were seen for metabolic and proteomic signatures (122 metabolites and 143 proteins) of the EAT-Lancet diet with CKD risk, and they mediated the inverse association by 18.0 and 27.2 percent, respectively. Degree of fatty acid unsaturation, glycoprotein acetyls, interleukin-18 receptor 1, and kidney injury molecule 1 were key mediators.

“These findings support the adoption of planetary health diets in CKD prevention and underscore the value of personalized nutrition strategies that incorporate genetic, environmental, and molecular profiling,” the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text