Vegetarians live... less long

[cooked]

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0088278#abstract0

A difficult to follow scientific study here, which doesn't necessarily prove anything, that indicates that vegans and vegetarians are more prone to disease and die earlier.

[robertthebruce]

Thanks just made my day..

I have been vegetarian for over 30 years.. suppose i aint got long now,.....

[Sheryl]

Actually no, it does not indicate this. It indicates that the vegetarians/vegans in the study reported more health problems. That is correllation, not causation. Indeed if there is causation it may be the other way around, i.e. it may be that people with health problems are more likely to adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet. As the study says:

"vegetarians report chronic conditions and poorer subjective health more frequently. This might indicate that the vegetarians in our study consume this form of diet as a consequence of their disorders, since a vegetarian diet is often recommended as a method to manage weight and health ......" (emphasis mine)

" no statements can be made whether the poorer health in vegetarians in our study is caused by their dietary habit or if they consume this form of diet due to their poorer health status. We cannot state whether a causal relationship exists, but describe ascertained associations."(emphasis mine)

And the study did not measure mortality at all. It was a cross-sectional study, not longitudinal.

In my experience vegan diets in particular are often adopted by people with cancer and other chronic conditions and there are a lot of "alternative medicine" websites/books advocating this. Naturally if the sample of vegetarians/vegans includes people who became so in the hopes of curing or improving a pre-existing chronic illness this will skew things.

[infinity11]

Maybe, maybe not, but the animals they don't eat may live longer.

[kriswillems]

I am really confused. I have read several other reports that said that vegetarians have less chance on heart diseases and some kinds of cancer.

I wonder what the purpose of scientific study is if no causal relation is proven.

I am sure you could find a relation between Thai elephants and liver cancer with humans.

(because Thai elephants live in areas where people eat uncooked food and there are parasites that cause liver cancer).

But that doesn't mean elephants cause liver cancer.

I wonder what the purpose is of this kind of study.

In the first paragraph they say:

"Moreover, our results showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with poorer health (higher incidences of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders), a higher need for health care, and poorer quality of life. Therefore, public health programs are needed in order to reduce the health risk due to nutritional factors."

I can agree with the first sentence. But the conclusion they make in the second sentence is complete bullshit. Because they did not prove a causal relation.

[Sheryl]

It is not possible to establish this through a cross-sectional survey. One would have to do a longitudinal one starting with people who were healthy and relatively young and then following them over a decade or more, and it would have to have a large sample. There have been a few such studies, most notably the Framingham Heart Study and the Nurses Health Study, both of which followed many thousands of people over many years. Both found that people with higher meat intake and lower fruit/veg intake had higher incidence of heart and other diseases and vice versa.

The study referenced in h=this thread is IMO fairly useless. Not only was it cross-sectional, it apparently did not even ask people about the temporal relationship between their current diet and their current health problems. So they could not separate out people who had adopted a vegan/vegetrian diet after being diagnosed with cancer or other serious disease from people who had been vegan/vegetarian for non-health reasons/longer periods of time.

[CaptHaddock]

Maybe, maybe not, but the animals they don't eat may live longer.

If the animals are born at all. There are 1.3 billion cattle in the world with a body mass larger than that of the human race. How many would there be if people did not eat them?

[infinity11]

Maybe, maybe not, but the animals they don't eat may live longer.

If the animals are born at all. There are 1.3 billion cattle in the world with a body mass larger than that of the human race. How many would there be if people did not eat them?

I don't know much about this except there are probably so many because of human's doing and human responsibility.

I also think highly inefficient, something like takes 10 pounds of vegetable protein to make one pound of beef.

[manarak]

Actually no, it does not indicate this. It indicates that the vegetarians/vegans in the study reported more health problems. That is correllation, not causation. Indeed if there is causation it may be the other way around, i.e. it may be that people with health problems are more likely to adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet. As the study says:

"vegetarians report chronic conditions and poorer subjective health more frequently. This might indicate that the vegetarians in our study consume this form of diet as a consequence of their disorders, since a vegetarian diet is often recommended as a method to manage weight and health ......" (emphasis mine)

" no statements can be made whether the poorer health in vegetarians in our study is caused by their dietary habit or if they consume this form of diet due to their poorer health status. We cannot state whether a causal relationship exists, but describe ascertained associations."(emphasis mine)

And the study did not measure mortality at all. It was a cross-sectional study, not longitudinal.

In my experience vegan diets in particular are often adopted by people with cancer and other chronic conditions and there are a lot of "alternative medicine" websites/books advocating this. Naturally if the sample of vegetarians/vegans includes people who became so in the hopes of curing or improving a pre-existing chronic illness this will skew things.

precisely... unfortunately, clever explanations usually fall on deaf ears.

people with problems of any kind (money, health, etc.) tend to clutch every straw they can.

The uneducated become religious, the more educated believe in pseudoscience.

Edited April 6, 2014 by manarak

[manarak]

Maybe, maybe not, but the animals they don't eat may live longer.

If the animals are born at all. There are 1.3 billion cattle in the world with a body mass larger than that of the human race. How many would there be if people did not eat them?

I don't know much about this except there are probably so many because of human's doing and human responsibility.

I also think highly inefficient, something like takes 10 pounds of vegetable protein to make one pound of beef.

Efficience only makes sense within a homogenous group and relatively to a common goal.

Humans are individuals who live to fulfill their needs and cravings - efficiency is irrelevant, the only question is whether people can afford what they want.

When green-minded people tell their dos and don't dos, I have the feeling they want to put me into a cob like in the matrix movie, with nutriments fed directly into my system. "the matrix" must seem like the perfect utopia to them. Eat poo but imagine it is a tasty steak...

BTW, the Japanese have already developed a method to produce steak from excrement. Would you like some fries with your s**t sir ?

[infinity11]

Can vegetarians eat insects?

[thepool]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Can vegetarians eat insects?

Doubt it!

That would involve "killing" and eating "animal" protein

[Taggart]

Just because one is eating a vegetarian diet doesn't mean they are eating healthy. If they are still eating high fat, with plenty of added sugar and sodium and highly processed foods, they are probably no healthier than most other people. On the other hand if a person, eats a low fat diet, with plenty of green leafy vegetables, fresh fruit and whole grains, the odds are, your chances of getting heart attack, stroke or certain cancers go down, but there's still no guarantees. Trouble is, most people don't even want to attempt it and if they do cannot stay on a diet like this, because it's dull and monotonous, and unless you bring your own food prepared beforehand, difficult to impossible to do in a social setting. Oh yeah, almost forgot, throw in exercise which I don't do enough of either.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton since his heart bypass surgery and a few years later having stents inserted, has gone on a diet similar to the above. So far, he seems to have lost weight, and appears healthier and thriving.

[ronz28]

Vegan diets are often deficient in a couple of critical elements that require supplementation like vitamins B12 and D3, also Omega 3- DHA and can't forget plenty of water.

Not just any fruits and vegetables will do as some are ineffective in preventing diseases like iceberg lettuce. Best are cancer fighters, antioxidants, high density nutrient packed whole foods including: garlic, onions, kale, spinach, broccoli, brussel sprouts, beans, sweet potatoes, lemons, limes, oranges, Indian Gooseberry, blueberries, cranberries, organic strawberries, kiwi, cilantro/pak chee, organic apples, avocados, cloves, Ceylon cinnamon, mushrooms, turmeric, ginger, black pepper, dark chocolate, pecans, flax seed, chia seed, walnuts, Brazil nuts, peanuts, red cabbage, old fashioned oatmeal (no flavored sugar packages), quinoa, brown rice, steamed tomatoes, hibiscus tea, etc.

[h90]

Maybe, maybe not, but the animals they don't eat may live longer.

If the animals are born at all. There are 1.3 billion cattle in the world with a body mass larger than that of the human race. How many would there be if people did not eat them?

They would have take over the planet already.....Lets eat them before they get even more....

[expatsupreme]

that is the stupidest claim for god sake, you hear these claims every day, and on the other hand vegens live longer.

Look at Hunza tribe, they are vegetarians, the live on average around 100 years old

So you are saying that ingesting high cholesterol meat, full of antibiotics, chemicals, milk, full of medicines, toxins is healthier than veggies and fruit and rice for example

you must be joking me, you need to push the meat industry forward with claims like that

why did Clinton switch to vegan after 2 heart attacks?

UPDATE

I have read the article more thorough, they talk about vegetarians, not vegans, and we know vegetarians like to munch on cheese, eggs....and other bad stuff, so it just depends........

But being vegan is much healtier of course

Edited May 3, 2014 by expatsupreme

[Sheryl]

Actually neither the study itself nor posts here have said anything of the sort.

As I noted in my first post, the study itself acknowledges that they did not measure the temporal linkages (i.e. whether people with health problems had been vegetarian prior to becoming ill or switched to a vegetarian or vegan diet as a result of having a chronic disease) and thus no conclusions at all can be drawn about this.

As the survey was done in Austria, a culture where the normal diet is very meat-based, it is quite likely that many of the vegans/vegetarians identified who had cancer, heart disease and the like had adopted those diets after being diagnosed with these problems.

As usual, the general media misrepresented the study findings.

To measure correlations between diet and longevity or other health outcomes it is necessary to do a longitudinal study in which people (preferably ones in good health to start with) are followed over a period of many years.

There have been several studies which did this and they have consistently found that better health is associated with:

- high consumption of fruits and vegetables

- high fiber consumption

- low consumption of meat, especially red meats. As far as I have ever read, from a health standpoint low consumption and non-consumption (i.e. vegetarian) doesn't matter, can get the same health benefit with very small occasional intake of red meat as with none. What is definitely not healthy is regular consumption of significant portions of it.

Diets high in fish and low in meat also seem correlated to good health.

As to the healthiness of vegetarian and vegan diets it will depend greatly on what is consumed and how much. Vegetarian diets which included eggs and dairy will usually contain all needed nutrients except possibly B-12 which may need to be supplemented. Dairy and eggs do contain B-12, so will depend on the quantity of the consumed. While lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets are potentially high-scoring in terms of containing all needed nutrients, they may have a less than ideal content in terms of saturated fats if consumption of whole dairy is very high. If consumption of dairy is small and/or limited to non-fat dairy products, no problem for that.

Vegetarian diets that exclude eggs and dairy = vegan. These diets will require B12 supplementation and may or may not require other supplementation depending on how well balanced it is - people on these diets need to know what they are doing. Care is also needed to ensure enough compete proteins, but it is certainly possible as long as the right mix of things like pulses, nuts and legumes are taken. Generally in my experience vegans are very careful and knowledgeable about the nutritional content of different foods so most get very good nutrition despite having eliminated all animal food products.

In other words, it is possible to have either a health or unhealthy diet regardless of whether you are a meat-eater, fish eater, fish and meat eater, a lacto-ovo vegetarian, or vegan -- depending on the variety and quantity of foods taken is.

[h90]

Every week another study:

Vegetarians are so healthy that they live an average of 100 years

Vegetarians are so unhealthy that they all die with 30

We eat way too much meat

We eat way too much carbs and should eat more meat instead

Milk is the best nutrition ever

Milk is worst and will immediately kill you

Everyone can find a study that supports his opinion....it gets the quality of a religious topic...My god is better than your god....

[Fookhaht]

Actually no, it does not indicate this. It indicates that the vegetarians/vegans in the study reported more health problems. That is correllation, not causation. Indeed if there is causation it may be the other way around, i.e. it may be that people with health problems are more likely to adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet. As the study says:

"vegetarians report chronic conditions and poorer subjective health more frequently. This might indicate that the vegetarians in our study consume this form of diet as a consequence of their disorders, since a vegetarian diet is often recommended as a method to manage weight and health ......" (emphasis mine)

" no statements can be made whether the poorer health in vegetarians in our study is caused by their dietary habit or if they consume this form of diet due to their poorer health status. We cannot state whether a causal relationship exists, but describe ascertained associations."(emphasis mine)

And the study did not measure mortality at all. It was a cross-sectional study, not longitudinal.

In my experience vegan diets in particular are often adopted by people with cancer and other chronic conditions and there are a lot of "alternative medicine" websites/books advocating this. Naturally if the sample of vegetarians/vegans includes people who became so in the hopes of curing or improving a pre-existing chronic illness this will skew things.

Years ago when my family started shopping at organic and health food stores, we jokingly always made the comment on how sickly most of the customers appeared to be.

Thanks Sheryl for bringing another perspective to that observation!

Edited May 4, 2014 by Fookhaht

[Kitsune]

This should clarifies things:

A chart on breast cancer mortality rates vs the capita of animal fat consumption.

The more animal you eat,the more you die of cancer.

Note that Israel Italy and Malte with low animal fat intake still have high cancer mortality rate, this is due to their vegetable oil intake

[Kitsune]

Same goes for colon cancer mortality rates

[expatsupreme]

Same goes for colon cancer mortality rates

how do you know italians eat low meat? are you italian, they consume meat, meat nd meat all the time just like everwhere else

this is such an old study, you can see Yogoslavia there, that has been gone for like 20 years.

Also thailand is pretty low and we all know Thai like to munch on all that bad meat, like sausages and stuff, but they eat a lot of veggies and fruit, so I guess that is why they have low cancer rate

Edited May 15, 2014 by expatsupreme

[Kitsune]

Same goes for colon cancer mortality rates

how do you know italians eat low meat? are you italian, they consume meat, meat nd meat all the time just like everwhere else

this is such an old study, you can see Yogoslavia there, that has been gone for like 20 years.

Also thailand is pretty low and we all know Thai like to munch on all that bad meat, like sausages and stuff, but they eat a lot of veggies and fruit, so I guess that is why they have low cancer rate

Italians have low meat intake (did not say eat low meat) according to this chart

Yes the chart (not study) is old but that's irrelevant, what is relevant in this chart is that it shows clearly that when consuming more meat you die more of cancer

Now many countries like Thailand are adapting the SAD (Standard American Diet), so yes things have changed.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Kitsune

[expatsupreme]

Same goes for colon cancer mortality rates

how do you know italians eat low meat? are you italian, they consume meat, meat nd meat all the time just like everwhere else

this is such an old study, you can see Yogoslavia there, that has been gone for like 20 years.

Also thailand is pretty low and we all know Thai like to munch on all that bad meat, like sausages and stuff, but they eat a lot of veggies and fruit, so I guess that is why they have low cancer rate

Italians have low meat intake (did not say eat low meat) according to this chart

Yes the chart (not study) is old but that's irrelevant, what is relevant in this chart is that it shows clearly that when consuming more meat you die more of cancer

Now many countries like Thailand are adapting the SAD (Standard American Diet), so yes things have changed.

but what saves Thailand in my opinion is all those fruit stales at every corner, fresh preccedorange juice....... that is a life saver I think. In europe, older people almost never consume fruit beside some apples...

In thailand it is different

I would be interested what is the cancer rate in Ecuador, where is forbiden to use any kind of pesticides anywhere, wonder if the people there are healtier

[Kitsune]

Same goes for colon cancer mortality rates

how do you know italians eat low meat? are you italian, they consume meat, meat nd meat all the time just like everwhere else

this is such an old study, you can see Yogoslavia there, that has been gone for like 20 years.

Also thailand is pretty low and we all know Thai like to munch on all that bad meat, like sausages and stuff, but they eat a lot of veggies and fruit, so I guess that is why they have low cancer rate

Italians have low meat intake (did not say eat low meat) according to this chart

Yes the chart (not study) is old but that's irrelevant, what is relevant in this chart is that it shows clearly that when consuming more meat you die more of cancer

Now many countries like Thailand are adapting the SAD (Standard American Diet), so yes things have changed.

but what saves Thailand in my opinion is all those fruit stales at every corner, fresh preccedorange juice....... that is a life saver I think. In europe, older people almost never consume fruit beside some apples...

In thailand it is different

I would be interested what is the cancer rate in Ecuador, where is forbiden to use any kind of pesticides anywhere, wonder if the people there are healtier

The topic is "Do vegetarians live less"

The chart answers the question by saying no and showing that on the contrary, vegetarian live longer (or more accurately non-veg die more of cancer)

As far as THL is concerned and if they eat more fruits than others, I would say yes, but that does not contradict the chart in any way.

Anyhow it's about fat intake, so fruit /veg/ legumes or anything that would make you eat less fat/meat has the same value.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Kitsune

[h90]

This should clarifies things:

A chart on breast cancer mortality rates vs the capita of animal fat consumption.

The more animal you eat,the more you die of cancer.

Note that Israel Italy and Malte with low animal fat intake still have high cancer mortality rate, this is due to their vegetable oil intake

There is a correlation on most countries between wealth and animal fat intake.

Would you draw breast cancer against average income, you could "proof" that as more you earn as more likely you get breast cancer.

You can also see that mostly countries as colder it gets as more animal fat. Would you draw average temperature, you could "proof" that getting cold breast makes the cancer.

Such diagrams don't tell much unless it can be proofed in detail that the animal fat is the reason.

Edit: To add that I don't trust that diagram, doesn't mean that it is surely wrong. It could be still the animal fat. Or it could be some chemicals in the animal fat. Or it could be overweight

Edited May 15, 2014 by h90

[expatsupreme]

It is logical that earing meat is way more dangerous for our bodies, and then there are studies that not eating meat, makes you sick, I dont know who pays for these studie, probably buthcher industry, mcd ...etc

[Kitsune]

This should clarifies things:

A chart on breast cancer mortality rates vs the capita of animal fat consumption.

The more animal you eat,the more you die of cancer.

Note that Israel Italy and Malte with low animal fat intake still have high cancer mortality rate, this is due to their vegetable oil intake

There is a correlation on most countries between wealth and animal fat intake.

Would you draw breast cancer against average income, you could "proof" that as more you earn as more likely you get breast cancer.

You can also see that mostly countries as colder it gets as more animal fat. Would you draw average temperature, you could "proof" that getting cold breast makes the cancer.

Such diagrams don't tell much unless it can be proofed in detail that the animal fat is the reason.

Edit: To add that I don't trust that diagram, doesn't mean that it is surely wrong. It could be still the animal fat. Or it could be some chemicals in the animal fat. Or it could be overweight

This diagram means the more animal fat you consume the more you die of cancer.

Nothing more,nothing less

Your temperature argument doe not work: Australia is hot,NZ is hot, France is temperate and they all die a lot of cancer

[Kitsune]

Anyway as you mentioned it's an old diagram and when it was published researchers concluded, cancer was due to fat intake.They like you, could not begin to question the western diet,it was out of question.

So they looked into an experimentation in India and reproduced it:

They took rats and fed them alternatively

- 3 weeks 20% casein (casein is the main protein found in dairy products)

- 3 weeks 5% casein

They found out that fort the first time ever they could control cancer growth: 3 weeks at 20% casein and rats tumors were growing,followed by 3 weeks at 5% and the tumors were shrinking.

Not only they could grow cancer but they could REVERSE it,simply by turning on and off the amount of animal protein

[h90]

This should clarifies things:

A chart on breast cancer mortality rates vs the capita of animal fat consumption.

The more animal you eat,the more you die of cancer.

Note that Israel Italy and Malte with low animal fat intake still have high cancer mortality rate, this is due to their vegetable oil intake

There is a correlation on most countries between wealth and animal fat intake.

Would you draw breast cancer against average income, you could "proof" that as more you earn as more likely you get breast cancer.

You can also see that mostly countries as colder it gets as more animal fat. Would you draw average temperature, you could "proof" that getting cold breast makes the cancer.

Such diagrams don't tell much unless it can be proofed in detail that the animal fat is the reason.

Edit: To add that I don't trust that diagram, doesn't mean that it is surely wrong. It could be still the animal fat. Or it could be some chemicals in the animal fat. Or it could be overweight

This diagram means the more animal fat you consume the more you die of cancer.

Nothing more,nothing less

Your temperature argument doe not work: Australia is hot,NZ is hot, France is temperate and they all die a lot of cancer

you can't pick 2 countries and argue something. Israel takes low animal fat and has high cancer.....

The point is that the diagram doesn't say anything because there is no proof that the animal fat is causing it and not any other effect.....Obvious probable would be, that people who eat a lot animal fat, don't live healthy at all. Maybe drink too much, smoke and eat too less vitamins as well.