The link between cardiovascular disease and general consumption of animal products (in comparison with diets with reduced or zero animal products) is by now extremely well established I believe. I believe in this case meta-analyses and large studies should be very informative (although understanding root causes is also important). All cause mortality also observed to be reduced, although to a lesser degree.

Just from a cursory search, you can find tons of studies supporting this. It is not a controversial statement at all in scientific nutrition and medical fields.

Some studies:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11537864/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33951994/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-30455-9

I think it's significant however that unhealthy plant based diets show increased mortality, so it's important to pay attention to what you eat in any case.

It's also worth keeping in mind conflicts of interest and cultural aspects. I think probably there are strong interests in the side of animal products, although this is partisan in the US (and surely there is some lobbying from the opposite direction as well). Also I think culturally there's strong preference for animal products, in particular meat and beef consumption, almost everywhere. Of course, science is supposed to be resistant to conflicts of interest (and it is usually mandatory to disclose funding conflicts of interest), but not all studies are the same. Those conflicts being mostly in the other direction give me additional confidence there isn't a strong bias from those sources.

Also I always like to mention you should supplement a plant based diet, with vitamin B12 and usually a few other vitamins.

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Also, for the more literally minded, it's obviously not simply due to the atoms from your food source having come from animals most recently that they're unhealthy, so it's also obviously theoretically possible to produce healthy animal-based foods (if only by transmuting their atoms with nuclear reactions), it's the particular proteins, fats and other compounds typically found tend to interact in unhealthy ways with our system.

But that said it's also very significant (in favor of plants) that animals often suffer a lot in the production of those food products, and whether or not you consume them you have the responsibility to diminish their suffering.

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