A vegetarian diet provides a variety
of proven health benefits.
Vegetarians have significantly
reduced rates of obesity, coronary
heart disease, hypertension, type II
diabetes, diet-related cancers,
diverticular disease, constipation
and gall stones.
In addition to being richer in
fruits and vegetables, vegetarian
diets tend to be lower in total fat.
Taber & Cook (1980) found lacto-ovo
vegetarians to consume an average of
35 percent of energy as fat,
compared to omnivores consuming over
40 percent of energy as fat. A study
of the diets of a group of French
vegetarians found they had a daily
intake of 25 percent less fat than
non-vegetarians (Millet, 1989).
Vegetarians also tend to eat
proportionally more polyunsaturated
fat to saturated fat compared with
non-vegetarians. Animal products are
the major sources of dietary
saturated fat.
Health Benefits of Vegetarianism
Compared with non-vegetarians,
Western vegetarians have:
-
A lower average Body Mass Index (BMI) (by about
1 kg/m2).
-
A lower mean plasma total cholesterol
concentration (by about 0.5 mmol/l).
-
A lower mortality from IHD (by about 25
percent).
-
They may also have a lower risk for some other
diseases such as constipation,
diverticular disease, gallstones
and appendicitis.
-
The evidence available suggests that widespread
adoption of a vegetarian diet
could prevent approximately
40,000 deaths from IHD in
Britain each year.
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church
Health Study
This is the only major ongoing study
on the general health and mortality
of vegetarians in the U.S. Data was
collected from 1976-1988. Of the
34,192 participants, all members of
the Seventh-day Adventist church: 29
percent were vegetarian, while 7-10
percent of the vegetarians were
vegan.
Compared to non-vegetarians the
above vegetarians had about:
-
1/2 the high blood pressure and diabetes
-
1/2 the colon cancer
-
2/3 the rheumatoid arthritis and prostate
cancer
-
Breast, lung, & uterine cancers tended to be
lower in vegetarians but could
have been due to random chance.
Vegetarian Life Expectancy
Life expectancies in the Adventist
Health Study have recently been
published. They show that this group
of Seventh-day Adventists appears to
be the longest-lived, formally
studied population in the world
(with an average life span of 78.5
years for men, 82.3 for women). |
