Vegetarian Diets (August 19, 2014)
And vegetarian diets are good for your heart.
The meta-analysis of over 21,000 participants that prompted my writeup today found that people who avoid meat end up with consistently lower and healthier blood pressure levels than those who do not. Some people even saw a bigger drop with the diet change than they did with medication.
More specifically, when people switch to a vegetarian diet of some type, they average a 6.9 mm Hg drop in systolic blood pressure (that’s the first number, that measures the amount of pressure in the arteries when the heart is contracting) and 4.9 drop in diastolic blood pressure (the second number, that measures that pressure when the heart is resting). Across the U.S. population, a five-point average drop in systolic pressure would produce a 9% drop in heart disease generally and a 14% drop in stroke incidents. (That is why doctors get very excited about numbers like these -- small changes that sound like they are hardly worth the trouble to an individual become very significant when taken across a large population.)
Diet is hard to study scientifically. Individuals vary greatly in what they eat to begin with, so changing one item may not produce a measurable change, especially if your study group is small (and the more participants in a study, the more expensive it is). Plus, getting someone (never mind a group of people) to make a consistent and measurable change in what they eat and then making sure that they are telling the truth about what they are eating is no small task. For these reasons and others, the most reliable studies of different diets and the resultant health differences have tended to be on large populations that have a particular eating style in common (Seventh Day Adventist, Korean, etc.). When we look at these studies, we also find that vegetarians have consistently lower blood pressures and resulting heart damage than do meat eaters.
"Vegetarian” as a general term encompasses a wide variation in dietary practice. There's vegan (no animal products of any kind), lacto-ovo vegetarians (who eat eggs and dairy products), and pesco-vegetarians (only fish).This study was not able to sort out whether one version of vegetarianism was superior to another in the inhibition of heart disease.
Why such a big difference between meat eaters and non-meat eaters, particularly when many of the latter group are still eating some animal protein? The official theory is that it is the decrease in saturated fat and sodium and the increase in potassium found in vegetarian diets that is making the difference. I would add my two cents and suggest that, at least in our society, the average person who stops eating meat is eliminating so many unhealthy food products that his/her overall health almost HAS to improve.
From the viewpoint of Chinese medicine, vegetarianism is NOT for everyone, particularly for young women prior to menopause. It's my opinion that some animal protein is a necessity in a society as high-stress as ours is. But most people eat too much of it and consequently see a general improvement in their health when they start eating some plant-based foods in its place.
--dr. diane holmes
Copyright © 2014
And vegetarian diets are good for your heart.
The meta-analysis of over 21,000 participants that prompted my writeup today found that people who avoid meat end up with consistently lower and healthier blood pressure levels than those who do not. Some people even saw a bigger drop with the diet change than they did with medication.
More specifically, when people switch to a vegetarian diet of some type, they average a 6.9 mm Hg drop in systolic blood pressure (that’s the first number, that measures the amount of pressure in the arteries when the heart is contracting) and 4.9 drop in diastolic blood pressure (the second number, that measures that pressure when the heart is resting). Across the U.S. population, a five-point average drop in systolic pressure would produce a 9% drop in heart disease generally and a 14% drop in stroke incidents. (That is why doctors get very excited about numbers like these -- small changes that sound like they are hardly worth the trouble to an individual become very significant when taken across a large population.)
Diet is hard to study scientifically. Individuals vary greatly in what they eat to begin with, so changing one item may not produce a measurable change, especially if your study group is small (and the more participants in a study, the more expensive it is). Plus, getting someone (never mind a group of people) to make a consistent and measurable change in what they eat and then making sure that they are telling the truth about what they are eating is no small task. For these reasons and others, the most reliable studies of different diets and the resultant health differences have tended to be on large populations that have a particular eating style in common (Seventh Day Adventist, Korean, etc.). When we look at these studies, we also find that vegetarians have consistently lower blood pressures and resulting heart damage than do meat eaters.
"Vegetarian” as a general term encompasses a wide variation in dietary practice. There's vegan (no animal products of any kind), lacto-ovo vegetarians (who eat eggs and dairy products), and pesco-vegetarians (only fish).This study was not able to sort out whether one version of vegetarianism was superior to another in the inhibition of heart disease.
Why such a big difference between meat eaters and non-meat eaters, particularly when many of the latter group are still eating some animal protein? The official theory is that it is the decrease in saturated fat and sodium and the increase in potassium found in vegetarian diets that is making the difference. I would add my two cents and suggest that, at least in our society, the average person who stops eating meat is eliminating so many unhealthy food products that his/her overall health almost HAS to improve.
From the viewpoint of Chinese medicine, vegetarianism is NOT for everyone, particularly for young women prior to menopause. It's my opinion that some animal protein is a necessity in a society as high-stress as ours is. But most people eat too much of it and consequently see a general improvement in their health when they start eating some plant-based foods in its place.
--dr. diane holmes
Copyright © 2014