
Vegetarians 'less healthy, have lower quality of life than meat-eaters' (2014) - prostoalex
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/vegetarians-are-less-healthy-and-have-a-lower-quality-of-life-than-meat-eaters-scientists-say-9236340.html
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cat-dev-null
This old study may only underscore people generally don't measure their diet
or pay attention to nutrition in order to avoid preventable conditions of
their own fault: balanced, limited caloric intake and essential vitamin
sufficiency. Maybe a few readers desire to feel superior for lazy, carbon- and
methane-intensive lifestyles, but that's likely only a small minority. There
are healthy meat eaters and healthy vegans.

As an anecdotal sample size of 1, I've eliminated meat for many years now and
my cholesterol numbers are outstanding... vitamins including B12 are all fine
considering the variety of bioavailable sources in my diet. I only take high-
quality fish oil, that's it. Works for me, YMMV.

~~~
noondip
Check out videos about fish oil supplements on
[http://nutritionfacts.org](http://nutritionfacts.org). I took them for a
while, but have since realized algae oil is a much safer source of EPA-DHA.
Even krill oil would be an improvement.

~~~
nikolay
That site you link to is a vegan propaganda site. It only has selective
studies that back its not-so-hidden agenda!

~~~
noondip
Exactly who stands to gain from a vegan agenda, do you think? Big Broccoli?
Dr. Greger Super Pills Inc.?

~~~
mindslight
The fish that vegans don't want harvested for their oil.

~~~
nikolay
Unfortunately, vegans kill a lot more animals by replacing forests and
grasslands with monocultures and most importantly - they kill wild animals,
where omnivores kill reproducible farm animals only... that wouldn't otherwise
exist anyway!

~~~
noondip
So you mean to say the mass production of corn and soy as animal feed is not
an example of crop monoculture? Also, how do vegans "kill wild animals" \- and
are you so sure they do so in numbers of over 150 billion per year, as does
modern animal agriculture? I think you are confused. Wildlife suffers mostly
from the collateral damage of meat production - deforestation, drought,
pollution, climate change, etc. Definitely check out documentaries such as
Cowspiracy if you are not convinced, or just search around. Here's something I
found about Amazon deforestation:

> A 2009 Greenpeace report found that the cattle sector in the Brazilian
> Amazon, supported by the international beef and leather trades, was
> responsible for about 80% of all deforestation in the region,[3] or about
> 14% of the world’s total annual deforestation, making it the largest single
> driver of deforestation in the world.[4] According to a 2006 report by the
> Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 70% of formerly
> forested land in the Amazon, and 91% of land deforested since 1970, is used
> for livestock pasture.[5][19]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_of_the_Amazon_ra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_of_the_Amazon_rainforest)

~~~
qrendel
Exactly this. Animal agriculture necessarily kills far more animals than crops
since you have to grow significantly more crops to feed livestock in the first
place. Meat does not just magically appear without having been fed.

Not only that, but in addition to the unpaid negative externalities of meat
production (e.g. climate change, deforestation, health problems), the price of
meat is kept artificially low through subsidies for corn and soybean produced
as animal feed.

~~~
nikolay
My animals don't eat crops - they eat grass. Climate change? Get educated!
It's not caused by sustainable animal farming! And what health problems?
Vegans have worse health than people who eat sustainable animal products.
Don't compare Mickey Dee's to quality meats! It's like saying all cars are
Mickey Mouse cars because you only look at a Yugo!

~~~
noondip
This might come as a big shock, but grass-fed farming operations are in fact
less sustainable and worse for the environment than even factory farming. I
really recommend you check out the documentary Cowspiracy (it's available on
NetFlix), or just look at the fact sheet on their web site -
[http://cowspiracy.com/facts](http://cowspiracy.com/facts)

Your claim that vegans have worse health is entirely unsubstantiated. Do you
have any evidence for this?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...and it ends up with Ranchers holed up in a federal building with guns.

------
qrendel
a) This is from April 2014.

b) While I couldn't immediately find anything debunking this particular study,
it's hard to take at face value considering all the research showing
correlation between high-vegetable diets and lower mortality[1], lower risk of
gastrointestinal cancers[2][3], etc.

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23599238](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23599238)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_and_cancer#Processed_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_and_cancer#Processed_and_red_meat)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_and_cancer#Fiber.2C_fruit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_and_cancer#Fiber.2C_fruits_and_vegetables)

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Britain's NHS offered an exhaustive list of problems with this study when it
came out [1].

[1]: [http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/04April/Pages/Vegetarians-
have-p...](http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/04April/Pages/Vegetarians-have-poorer-
quality-of-life-study-claims.aspx)

------
SixSigma
> in a poorer state of physical and mental health overall.

> mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.

Or: having depressions and anxiety and/or being in poor physical & mental
health makes you eat crappy food

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noondip
Lots of quackery here.

[http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info:d...](http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0088278&representation=PDF)

> no statements can be made whether the poorer health in vegetarians in our
> study is caused by their dietary habit or if they consume this form of diet
> due to their poorer health status. We cannot state whether a causal
> relationship exists, but describe ascertained associations. Moreover, we
> cannot give any information regarding the long-term consequences of
> consuming a special diet nor concerning mortality rates

So it's also entirely possible those with existing chronic conditions and
poorer subjective health were more likely to try vegetarian eating (reverse
causality).

But no, it gets worse ...

> While 0.2% (31) of the interviewees were pure vegetarians (57.7% female),
> 0.8% (124) reported to be vegetarians consuming milk and eggs (77.3%
> female), and 1.2% (186) to be vegetarians consuming fish and/or eggs and
> milk (76.7% female). 23.6% (3,651) reported to combine a carnivorous diet
> with lots of fruits and vegetables (67.2% female), 48.5% (7,505) to eat a
> carnivorous diet less rich in meat (60.8% female), and 25.7% (3,977) a
> carnivorous diet rich in meat (30.1% female)

> Since the three vegetarian diet groups included a rather small number of
> persons (N = 343), they were analyzed as one dietary habit group. Moreover,
> since the vegetarian group was the smallest, we decided to match each of the
> vegetarians (1) with an individual of each other dietary habit group
> (carnivorous diet rich in fruits and vegetables (2), carnivorous diet less
> rich in meat (3) and a carnivorous rich in meat (4)).

31 vegans out of a group of 15,000 people, and the rest of the "vegetarians"
weren't even clearly defined, nor any control on how long they've been veg*n.
Overall, this is a very poorly designed study with several obvious flaws.

And anyway, common ovo-lacto vegetarians still include harmful dairy products
in their diet, so even if all this were true, I wouldn't be surprised.

Finally, here is a newer study by the same author on the same data with an
entirely contradictory conclusion:

[http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00508-013-0483-3](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00508-013-0483-3)

> Subjects eating a carnivorous diet less rich in meat self-report poorer
> health, a higher number of chronic conditions, an enhanced vascular risk, as
> well as lower quality of life. In conclusion, our results have shown that
> consuming a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is associated with better
> health and health-related behavior. Therefore, public health programs are
> needed for reducing the health risks associated with a carnivorous diet.

