
Vegetarians Less Healthy, Lower Quality Of Life Than Meat-Eaters - 001sky
http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0088278&representation=PDF
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mikekij
It seems like there are a lot of variables that need to be controller for
here. For example, do people who adopt a vegetarian diet DEVELOP depression
and mental illness? I doubt it. Much more likely that those people who are
predisposed to emotional issues for whatever reason gravitate
disproportionally to a vegetarian diet.

I've been vegetarian for 20 years, but the health aspects of the diet are only
about 10% of why I chose to be a vegetarian. I bet that's true for a large
number of vegetarians.

~~~
zurn
Yep. People going veg for environmental and/or animal ethics reasons are
usually living in a society that's not aligned with their conviction.
Principled would be one word for it.

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lutusp
I offer the usual warning to those who might think this study represents a
real scientific finding -- it studies the health of people who have already
chosen to be vegetarians or meat-eaters, it doesn't control for the source or
reason for that choice.

This means the study suffers from the problems that plague all "retrospective"
studies, studies of populations who have already made their choices for
unknown reasons. It is this lack of control that calls any meaningful
conclusions into question.

A prospective study by contrast, obviously totally impractical, would empanel
subjects who would be randomly made to eat either vegetables or meat, and the
results would be carefully examined. That might be science, this is not.

~~~
waps
It's a peer-reviewed journal, accredited academic researchers, thorough
methodology (probably better than average actually, not badly done) ...

What exactly is your problem with it ? What is the problem with retrospective-
scare-quoted studies ? I personally have more problems with non-retrospective
studies for obvious reasons.

Like all academic papers there are loads of problems with the research and
conclusions, mostly stemming from an inability to do real experiments on
humans and limited budgets, and of course these do introduce caveats. But if
you're going to start judging papers on sample size ... first you don't
understand statistics, secondly these guys are using more people than most
(because it's such a widespread phenomenon, it's easy to get a big sample size
of course, but still).

And frankly, artificially limiting your intake of different foods ... results
in some chemicals not being available to your body ... first of course results
in weight loss (because a lot of these require a lot of chemical energy to
manufacture, or can't be manufactured at all) ... and then result in bigger
problems.

It is only outside of medical circles that the benefits of modern food are in
question. Nobody in the medical establishment doubts that processed, meaty and
fatty foods are pretty much the best nutrition possible for the human body.
Just yesterday I read an article about what everyone thought was an epidemic
of the plague, at the end of the last century in Chicago. It wasn't, it was
contaminated grain that made it into bread, was effectively invisible, and
quite deadly. For obvious reasons this grain was grown perfectly natural, if
only because modern stuff didn't exist yet. Yes, it makes you fat. Yes, there
are historical screwups (not nearly as much screwups as with "natural" food of
course, but somehow the screwups with industrial food are judged infinitely
more important).

And yes, there are some, including medical researchers and so on, that doubt
the morality of processed foods. I find this distasteful. Medical research and
all science should first and foremost be value-free. Morality should be shut
out (with the potential exception of describing methods to do direct large
scale damage, ie. I find it acceptable that the exact gene sequence and
samples for say the bubonic plague does require you to sign a letter you won't
use it for nefarious purposes, even if I would have major problems with
similar requirements for the cure).

~~~
lutusp
> It's a peer-reviewed journal, accredited academic researchers, thorough
> methodology (probably better than average actually, not badly done)

As retrospective studies go, it's not bad. But retrospective studies have a
well-deserved and terrible reputation for confusing causes and effects.

> But if you're going to start judging papers on sample size ...

I invite you to locate the sentence where I complained about the sample size.

> Nobody in the medical establishment doubts that processed, meaty and fatty
> foods are pretty much the best nutrition possible for the human body.

Apart from your obviously false claim, The "medical establishment" are not
scientists and are not competent to make that call. They are not researchers,
they are practitioners of methods developed by others.

> I find this distasteful.

That's your argument? Please -- in a discussion of science, one is expected to
produce something resembling evidence, not emotion.

You need to learn why retrospective studies have the poor reputation they do.
You need to learn that they cannot distinguish causes and effects, and why.
You need to learn how science works.

~~~
waps
> As retrospective studies go, it's not bad. But retrospective studies have a
> well-deserved and terrible reputation for confusing causes and effects.

So do the double-blind studies you appear to be advocating. Ever thought of
what exactly the placebo effect is and what some causes might be ?

> Apart from your obviously false claim, The "medical establishment" are not
> scientists and are not competent to make that call. They are not
> researchers, they are practitioners of methods developed by others.

The medical establishment are people who treat the sick, mostly. They observe
that they regularly have people who come in with nutritional deficiencies
because they are vegetarians and didn't follow the diets properly. One look at
such a diet tells you exactly why this happens. Second is that you observe
that vegetarianism and eating disorders go hand in hand.

You know what contains every single substance your body needs on a daily
basis, all vitamins, minerals, calcium, you name it and will prevent nearly
every food disorder, and it's hypo-allergenic (meaning perfectly safe for very
nearly every patient you have) ? A 150gr steak. The only thing it doesn't have
is sufficient calories, so you should also have something starchy with it.
(And to be pedantic, it's the fatty tissue in the steak that's the main source
of it's good properties. And yes, we're talking a rare to medium steak here)

You know what vegetarian food contains every single substance your body needs
on a daily basis ... None. What should a vegetarian eat daily ? * Nuts * Beans
* Spinach or soy (or tofu, even if that's less ideal) * Sunlight (yes,
really), or Vitamin D supplements * Vitamin B12 supplements

Needless to say, this list is very much not hypo-allergenic, there is a
significant fraction of the population (not that many, granted, but you have
to check) that will swell up and start convulsing if you feed this to them.
There are obviously other vegetarian diets, but they have similar problems.

True, missing one of these for a day is very much unlikely to kill you, but
prolonged shortages will. Also keep in mind that you should never raise a kid
vegetarian, because that is much riskier than being vegetarian as adults.
There have been cases of kids dying because of vegan diets.

What I find extremely convenient is the physical symptoms of low-level protein
deficiency. First : it's really, really bad for you. But the initial symptoms
are sleeping more, weight loss and tissue loss (ie. not just fatty tissue).
That's imho why people do this : because it slims you down.

Incidentally, the one thing that is confirmed to slim you down by removing
fatty tissue is cold. And if you don't overdo it (e.g. go swimming in a 24
degree water pool) it is quite safe. It's not about feeling cold, merely about
increasing your body's heat loss.

[1]
[http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8373.pdf](http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8373.pdf)

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leobabauta
Only 0.2% of the interviewees were actually vegetarian. It would be hard to
generalize based on such a small group.

~~~
leobabauta
There's also a large body of research that contradict the findings of this
study, just fyi. Just one example (there are many more):

[http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/june2013/06102013vegetari...](http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/june2013/06102013vegetarian.htm)

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gradi3nt
I wonder if everyone's quality of life would drop if everyone ate the amount
of meat per person consumed in Austria. Could our environment even support it?

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eberfreitas
This might be a reaaally noob question but I wonder if any of that is related
with the use of pesticides in food?

~~~
pan69
Maybe a noob answer but I don't think so. Most vegans and vegetarians I know
are pretty aware of this and only buy organic. Then again, please consider the
hormones and other crap supermarket meat is pumped full of..

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dang
Please don't rewrite article titles like this.

~~~
001sky
The original (peer reviewed, etc) research was submitted in liu of a
journalistic news story for increased submission quality.[1] The conclusion of
that research reads:

 _" Overall, our findings reveal that vegetarians report poorer health, follow
medical treatment more frequently, have worse preventive health care
practices, and have a lower quality of life."_

Which is unfortunately too long for HN submission, but is the (in fact,
verbatim) published summary. A revised headline might read, Without any
substantial editorialization or modification of meaning:

 _" Vegetarians report poorer health...and...lower quality of life."_

Aruably the word "report" is more neutral than "have", but is substantially
similar to the submission. All that being said if you guys want to change
it...it is absolutely your perogotive. Its just hard to avoid making certain
compromises (imperfect title or imperfect article). This is unfortunately one
of those corner cases IMHO.

It goes without saying that the published academic title ishopelessly vague
for anyone not already familiar with the results. To wit:

 _" The Association between Eating Behavior and Various Health Parameters: A
Matched Sample Study"_

Has infinite degrees of freedom.

[1] An third party edited and published title highlight what it is
'newsworthy' (ie, this is not self edited). The original research was
submitted (ie, mismatched) to increase the quality and availability of the
information provided to readers.

~~~
leobabauta
> The original (peer reviewed, etc) research was submitted in liu of a
> journalistic news story for increased submission quality.[1] The conclusion
> of that research reads: >"Overall, our findings reveal that vegetarians
> report poorer health, follow medical treatment more frequently, have worse
> preventive health care practices, and have a lower quality of life."

Actually that's not what the research concludes. You left out "Austrian adults
who eat a vegetarian diet". That's different than American vegetarians, who
are a much larger group with a different and longer culture of being aware of
issues like B12, etc.

~~~
001sky
This is a good point, but misleading. The relevant qualifications are obvious
(as to the study co-hort).

On the substance of your point, however, I appreciate the comments. A
discussion of the limitations of the study cohort and methodology is certainly
a good discussion topic.

I would caution the notion "americans" are superiour at being vegetarian.
Other cultures are more natively vegetarian. EG, The Indian Sub-continent and
Bhuddists in Nepal, etc. And have genetic and cultural adaptations much longer
in gestation as a result.

Also, context switching doesn't solve the key issue: non-vegetarians veg-
native cultures also self-selct. Ethnic variation is also a vexing problem in
this area because of phenotypic variation (race, lactose tolerance etc) linked
with health.

A study of vegetarian-dominant cultures may show something entirely different.
Yet also not be applicable to the US population.

~~~
leobabauta
I didn't say Americans are superior at being vegetarian. I said they're a much
larger group with a longer culture of being aware of issues like B12, etc.
That's factual.

