Vegetarians vs. Non-Vegetarians - Was Re: Iron <<<>>> Immunity

[Guest guest]

--- In , " old542000 " <apater@m...>

wrote:

> Hi All,

>

> Vegetarianism is a common form of diet among us,

> it seems to me. Veganism occurs less frequently among us,

> as it does in the Seventh Day Adventists. Some members come to

> mind, but there may be more among our members than

> among Seventh Day Adventists than among the general

> public?

>

> There is a report that has been discussed regarding

> various aspects such as nuts and the relative risk of

> ischemic heart disease. Some have included and some

> have not the Medline identification number.

Hi folks:

This study Al posted is really quite interesting. The BMIs of the non-

vegetarians ('NONVEGs') averaged 26.2. That of the vegetarians

('VEGs') was lower, at 24.2. But this is not truly radically

different. None of these groups was anywhere close to CR levels of

BMI.

Al laments the absence of caloric intakes. My guess is that they can

be inferred from the BMIs. Had the BMIs reflected CR levels then we

could probably deduce that the caloric intakes were at CR levels

also. But they weren't. Although, since the VEG BMIs were below

those of the general population I think we can expect that their

caloric intakes were too.

The VEGs suffered high BP and diabetes each half as often as the

NONVEGs. But their incidence of IHD was only 38% less. I would have

hoped that it would have been much lower than that. The VEGs still

had a lifetime incidence of IHD of 21%. This makes me wonder what

this stat is for those who are established on CR. I had expected it

would be near negligible. Perhaps that expectation is too

optimistic. The japanese I seem to remember have only a 6% heart

disease incidence. So the VEGs in this study must be doing some

things really wrong. Four of them may be (imo) A) They do not

drink wine, and They do not eat fish C) Of course they are

eating too many calories also : ^ ))) My guess is that they would

be a lot healthier (perhaps with less than 6% heart disease

incidence) if they did. D) Probably not getting enough either ;

^ )))

As Al noted NUTS turned out to be a major factor in this study for

helping to reduce heart disease - protection factor 50%. And this

applied to NONVEGs as much as to VEGs.

Especially notable was that fruit consumption once per day reduced

incidence of lung cancer by ~70%. Rather surprising was that the

VEGs didn't eat much more fruit on average than the NONVEGs - 17.7

servings per week compared with 14.1. There was a huge difference

though in the VEGs preference for whole grain bread - nearly seven

times as many VEGs preferred it than NONVEGs.

Finally there is a table that is labelled: 'relative risk of various

cancers in VEGs compared with NONVEGs', and shows relative risks

between 1.17 and 1.88. I would have thought that meant, as labelled,

that the VEGs get more cancer. But I **ASSUME** they got the table

description wrong (?????). Or, perhaps more likely, I am confused?

Good study, Al, thanks.

Rodney

> Please see in Medline for the abstract:

>

> http://tinyurl.com/5maqt

>

> From this we can see the whole paper in:

>

> http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/70/3/532S

>

> There is much in the full paper that is not apparent in

> the abstract. For example, see the data on beef consumption

> versus ischemic heart disease in Figure 1. In men, the

> vegetarians have a clear benefit from not consuming meat.

> Surprisingly, there is a not significant negative association

> for women vegetarians.

>

> Also, the BMI data of Table 5 should be of interest to our

> members, I believe. Caloric intakes are not included,

> unfortunately.

>

> Cheers, Alan Pater