Vegetarian diet protects against heart disease

Vegetarians rarely suffer a heart attack

01/02/2013

Vegetarian diet is considered particularly healthy in many ways today. While long-term deficiencies were feared as a result of the vegetarian diet, has now been clearly established scientifically that vegetarians are exposed by their dietary behavior no risk, but actually promote their health. Also, the risk of heart disease is significantly reduced by the absence of meat, according to a recent study by British researchers.

the aim of the study „was to investigate the association of a vegetarian diet with the risk of fatal and nonfatal heart disease“, The researchers write around Francesca L Crowe of the University of Oxford in the journal „American Journal of Clinical Nutrition“ (on-line). The result was clear: vegetarians are much less likely to have heart disease than meat eaters. About a third of the risk of being hospitalized for a heart attack was reduced among vegetarians. However, this could - at least in part - also go back to the generally healthier lifestyle of the vegetarians.

Data from nearly 45,000 patients evaluated
The British researchers had in their study the data of a total of 44,561 men and women from the „European Prospective Investigation in Cancer and Nutrition“ (EPIC) study evaluated. Of the English and Scottish study participants, 34 percent and around 15,000 subjects were vegetarians. On the basis of the hospital data and death certificates, the researchers examined which heart complaints the subjects had within an average of 11.6 years after the start of the study ... Overall, 1,066 hospital admissions and 169 deaths as a result of a heart attack were observed during the study period. The risk of vegetarians was 32 percent lower than that of non-vegetarians, write Crowe and colleagues. In addition, vegetarians on average had lower body mass index, cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

Vegetarian with a healthier lifestyle
Because both overweight and high cholesterol and high blood pressure are associated with heart disease, researchers believe that this could also be the way in which the vegetarian diet reduces the risk of heart attack. However, vegetarians often also maintain a significantly healthier lifestyle with more exercise and abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, so that it can not be ruled out that the causal link is at least partly due to the generally healthier lifestyle and not due to the vegetarian diet itself. (Fp)

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