Re: Vegetarians aren't healthier
by Graeme M on June 16th, 2017, 8:25 am
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".