Vegetarians aren't healthier

[vivian maxine]

Well, the men can eat lima beans. I don't believe that story that it wouldn't work for women too.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 105350.htm

[Serpent]

That was Dubya's daddio who hated broccoli. George HW Bush.

Not a rancher, then?

I noticed an uptick in energy with a mostly-vegan diet, which I believe lies in the simple fact that I'm consuming a much wider range of vegetables and legumes. The uptick, however, plunges into a trough of fatigue and muscle cramps when I go full vegan, which symptoms match with those of protein shortage.

Two other common problems that may account for those symptoms are insufficient calcium ( which can be remedied by a portion of any milk product; I like delectable cheese, my SO eats yucky yogurt. Your potassium, lack of which is another common cause of muscle cramp, should be okay with beans and yams and the odd yellow squash.) and B12. Taking a multi vitamin, or B complex won't rectify this, since B12 is destroyed by stomach acid. My doctor is forcing me to take the ones you have to dissolve under your tongue... gahh!... so that it's absorbed through the mucus membranes.

But won't it be great when synthesized meat becomes widely accessible?

[vivian maxine]

Protein? Have a peanut butter lollipop. So easy. Just dip a tablespoon into the jar of peanut butter. Orange juice goes well with it if you like.

Leg cramps? Cut out the colas. It's an overbalance of phosphorus against calcium and potassium. The three have to be in balance and that is hard to do if we are Pepsiholics or colaholics.

[Heavy_Water]

Right on!! Eat that steak, amigo! LOL

As a lifelong athlete and fitness and nutrition freak, I've claimed forever that a vegetarian diet is in no way a guarantee of optimal health. Or even of good health. I've also claimed that an active athlete who can flourish on such a diet is rare.

I myself have gone veggie as I like to say, for weeks at a time. I've done this more than a few times. And each time I documented my performance in various sports, as well as my appearance and overall level of well being. And yes, I took time to prepare and eat very high quality vegetarian meals. I knew what I was doing, iow.

Guess what? Not once in those veggie periods did I improve in any way. I in fact declined in most measurable ways. Strength being the one area that always took a nosedive.

People are different. Some may do well not eating meat. But I believe we as a species began to thrive when we began bring carnivores. The meat and attendant fat and protein fed our brains, to put it in layman's terms. There is done compelling published, peer reviewed writings on this theory.

And, hey, are not the majority of vegans fairly insufferable boors? LOL.

Quick joke.........

How do ya tell if somebody is a vegan or vegetarian?

Don't worry....they'll tell you.

LOL


Cheers, mates.


Omnivores of da World Unite!!!!

[vivian maxine]

High_Water, (another of those surveys) I once read that meat-eaters are more aggressive than non-meat eaters. If true - notice the If - might it be why active sports would not be as successful in the latter? Or, strength not as strong? What really occurred to me when I read the survey is that maybe we'd have less war. Hmmmm?

[Braininvat]

A lot of food effects are coming from what we tell our very suggestible minds as we eat a certain food. Lots of placebo and nocebo effect going on. And one person's experience with meat abstention is what science calls anecdotal. Belief is a powerful force in our physical vitality. I have noticed it's hard to get enough protein on pure vegan diets, but anyone who adds in some eggs and dairy is likely getting more than the protein they require. And the excess is just excreted via extra work from the kidneys. Back in the 90s, IIRC, one of the world's noted powerlifter champions was a vegan. Just sayin'...

[zetreque]

23andme has a new tool that takes the pool of your dna relatives then runs statistics on all the questions they have answered and I think it compares that to the whole population and tells you whether you are more or less likely to do different things based on family reported history. Yes there can be certain biases built into that method like if 23andme has advertised to customers of certain regions over others but it's still interesting stuff and can hint at subconscious indicators to our specific individual ancestry and evolution.

One of my results is

11% less likely to be a vegetarian

which matches my mom.

and my dad is 43% less likely to be a vegetarian.

As is typically the case from my experience, the results are eerily true :)

[BioWizard]

Voodoo. But hey if you find it enteraining enough to want to pay for it (not to mention contribute your DNA), I won't judge. People have been paying fortune tellers for millenia.

[Braininvat]

I am wondering, "less likely" than what? 43% less likely to be vegetarian than...? The average of all the samples?

[zetreque]

I am wondering, "less likely" than what? 43% less likely to be vegetarian than...? The average of all the samples?

I tried to find a more detailed citation on that particular report but couldn't. I assume less likely than either the ~1200 to DNA relative matches for myself or the entire pool of people who are part of the DNA relatives feature which I think is somewhere between 1 and 2 million.

It is possible they threw some actual genetics into this report though. It would be somewhat complicated but they could use the self reported data along with genetic data then do a comparison to my genetic data to weigh the results.

[BioWizard]

They may as well be using dice for much of the report. Most genomics-based population correlation studies are cowshit, especially for attributes that are extremely susceptible to environmental and social conditions. Trying to find linear correlations with DNA is the laziest (both intellectually and effort wise) practice biology has ever produced. I hope this fashion passes before it erodes biomedical research further.

And nobody tell me machine learning is going to fix it - that's just taking the laziness to a whole new level :)

[zetreque]

Have you read or heard of the novel "Oryx and Crake" BioWizard?

[Braininvat]

Crake was one of the scariest mad scientists I've encountered in the SF genre. That is a very disturbing novel. There are two sequels, but I haven't been tempted to read them.

[Graeme M]

I'm a bit late to the party on this one (I don't visit often), but without reading the paper completely, it seems to me that the conclusion reached is rather different from what commenters here have interpreted it to mean.

The researchers observe that a vegetarian diet is associated with positive nutritional/health effects, but that overall, people identifying as vegetarian have poorer health indicators. What this seems to mean is what is uncovered in the interesting backstory - that many people self-identifying as vegetarian have sought to follow such a diet to overcome pre-existing conditions. For this reason, vegetarians are more likely to seek medical advice, experience life-threatening illness and to die from these illnesses.

In other words, identifying as vegetarian is a signal for health professionals that such people belong to a higher risk group. "Vegetarianism" is a potential dietary indicator for the focus of certain health programs, not that vegetarianism as a diet is in itself less healthy. As the authors say in the discussion:

"Therefore, 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".