Two Big Studies On Meat Eaters Versus Vegans, Over 96,000 And 65,000 People by Brenda Davis, R.D.

Intro

we have really and truly mountains of evidence we’re plant-based diets are concerned truckloads of evidence and and so we’re just going to take a quick peek at some of the evidence I think is the most compelling and that evidence comes from mainly to large cohorts there’s actually a third in Taiwan as well which I’ll mention briefly but the the two big cohorts these are cohorts where the researchers have been following groups you know populations that that are very health conscious these people exercise and they tend not to smoke and they you know they live healthy lives but within the cohorts that the people eat differently and so what they’ve got is about a third of each cohort is either lacto-ovo vegetarian or vegan and they divided up into meat eaters fish eaters which are fish eaters plus lacto-ovo semi vegetarians vegetarians and and vegans and so a third being either lacto-ovo

The Two Big Cohorts

vegetarian or vegan and the first is the Adventist Health Study – with over ninety six thousand participants the study actually began in 2002 but is ongoing and epic Oxford from the UK over 65 thousand participants and it began in 1993 and is ongoing so what’s really interesting to know about these cohorts is people in these health-conscious cohorts regardless of the dietary group whether they’re meat eaters or vegans they all die at about half the rate of the general populations in their regions as a cohort so it’s it’s it’s a win and what why you need to know this is because when we compare vegans in this these cohorts with meat eaters we’re not comparing vegans with the general population that are eating a western-style diet we’re comparing them with meat-eaters who smoked the same amount drink the same amount exercise the same amount have the same kind of education are about the same age so we’re controlling for what we call con founding there variables but we’re also comparing two similar health-conscious individuals so the differences in you know heart disease and cancer and diabetes would be much smaller when you compare people that are so similar versus comparing with Western diet eaters so just know

Cardiovascular Disease

that so what are the findings well where cardiovascular disease is concerned compared again to similar health-conscious meat eaters cardiovascular disease rates were 32% lower among lacto-ovo vegetarians and vegans combined and in epic Oxford and that was controlled for everything except body mass index or body fatness but when body fatness was factored in it was still 28% lower the Adventist Health Study to cardiovascular disease was 42% lower among vegan men 23% lower among lacto-ovo vegetarian men it was actually 34% lower among pesco vegetarian men or fish eaters but there was no there were no significant differences in cardiovascular disease in women and

Diabetes

hypertension in the Adventist Health Study – compared to similar health-conscious non vegetarians the risk of hypertension was 75% lower among vegans and 55 percent lower among lacto-ovo vegetarians cancer compared again to the similar health-conscious non vegetarians or meat-eaters cancer rates were 19% lower among vegans and 11% lower among lacto-ovo vegetarians in the Adventist Health Study – there were 16% lower among vegans and 8% lower among lacto-ovo vegetarians diabetes in the Adventist Health Study – the risk of developing diabetes was 62% lower among vegans and 38% lower among lacto-ovo vegetarians and that was even controlled for BMI so it was controlled for all confounding variables so even with body fatness factored in vegans still had a 62 percent lower risk and this is where

Taiwanese Study

I bring in the Taiwanese because in the Taiwanese studies and they’re coming out with quite a few studies they’re actually looking at a Buddhist population where some Buddhists are meat eaters and some are vegetarians in there comparing similar health-conscious you know Taiwanese Buddhists with with the vegetarians versus the meat-eaters and in their diabetes study they reported that the risk of developing diabetes was actually 51% lower among vegetarian and they’re very near vegan men and about 75% lower among vegetarian or near vegan women kidney disease compared to similar health-conscious non vegetarians the the vegetarians and vegans combined had 52 percent less kidney disease and 31 percent fewer kidney stones so that in and that was epic oxforts of so very very interesting because a lot of people think well there’s more oxalates in a vegan diet they might get more kidney stones and in fact they get almost a third less cataracts in epic Oxford the diverticular disease the vegans had 40% less cataracts and the and the lacto-ovo vegetarians had about 30% less cataracts than the non vegetarians and diverticular disease again epic Oxford they the vegans had 72 percent less diverticular disease and the lacto-ovo vegetarians had 27 percent less diverticular disease and so this is a very very quick rundown of some of the evidence in terms of disease risk reduction the evidence really if you look overall at the evidence it is strong and highly consistent and you just do do the searches yourself and and the amount of information is honestly overwhelming but I think that the studies from epic Oxford and the Adventist Health Study – are really among the most compelling but and people I think almost all experts get this and and within the medical and Dietetic communities I think this is pretty well understood