13.6.11

Vegetarian - Will Ditching Meat Really Save Your Arteries?

Vegetarians and Heart Disease: Will Ditching Meat Really Save Your Arteries? « Raw Food SOS: Troubleshooting on the Raw Food Diet
by Denise Minger

To tackle this problem, the researchers nabbed a bunch of nationally-representative data from a USDA food survey project, which documented the results of two 24-hour diet recalls as well as answers to the question “Do you consider yourself to be a vegetarian?” Then they looked in detail at what the vegetarians versus nonvegetarians were putting in their mouths. Out of the 13,000+ folks in the study, 334—or about 2.5 percent—identified themselves as vegetarian. That figure jibes with the numbers offered by the Vegetarian Resource Group and other polls that peg the percent at 2.5 to 2.8 or so.

But here’s the kicker. Out of those 334 so-called vegetarians, almost two thirds were still guzzling meat on their diet recall days. And we’re not just talking pesco-vegetarians eating fish, either: The fake vegetarians averaged 80 grams of red meat per day, not terribly far from the 137 grams reported by the omnivores with the highest meat intake.


Unfortunately, a lot of studies enrolling vegetarians take their subjects’ word about their diet habits, not realizing that fish, chicken, and Philly cheese steaks qualify as vegetables to some. That means that the vegetarian research we have—especially studies that recruit self-defined vegetarians for blood tests and other measurements—might not be examining the effects of a meat-free diet so much as a wishful-thinking diet. In this sense, studies looking at religious vegetarians (who have God to answer to) and ethical vegans (who have an ideology to answer to) are probably more legitimate than studies recruiting average Joe-Schmoes off the street who think being vegetarian means eating a salad on weekends.

But there’s more. This particular paper found some important differences between self-defined vegetarians and self-defined omnivores, regardless of whether the vegetarians ate meat or not—suggesting that the vegetarian label (and the lifestyle patterns it accompanies) is more important than the avoidance of meat:
  • Both the vegetarians and the meat-eaters who thought they were vegetarians had lower BMIs than the self-defined omnivores.
  • All of the self-defined vegetarians (meat-free or not) ate more total vegetables, more “other” vegetables, more total fruit, and more citrus than the omnivores.
  • The self-defined vegetarians ate fewer white potatoes and fried potatoes than the most carnivorous omnivores. (My guess is the omnis were racking up some meat credits at McDonald’s, and did get fries with that.)
Of course, there are also some studies showing that, regardless of whether someone’s an omnivore in denial or embraces their flesh lust, eating more meat seems to correlate with certain cancers and heart disease. Does this “what do vegetarians eat” paper offer any insight into that? It sure does. If we compare the true vegetarians in this study (the ones who ate no meat on their recall days) with the true omnivores (the ones who ate plenty of meat on their recall days), we can see that the folks who limited their meat also consumed:
  • More dark leafy greens, deep yellow vegetables, “other” vegetables, and total vegetables
  • More whole-grain bread and brown rice (opposed to refined)
  • More total fruit, citrus fruit, dried fruit, and “other” fruit
  • More walnuts, almonds, and pecans
  • More total legumes, lentils, garbanzo beans, and hummus
  • Fewer beverages
  • Fewer “sugars and candies”
  • Fewer table fats
  • More wine
  • More carotene, vitamin E, vitamin C, thiamine, calcium, magnesium, copper, and dietary fiber
There’s nothing about eating meat that requires someone to inhale sugar and eat less fresh produce—but because meat (with all that awful saturated fat and cholesterol) has been so vilified in the nutrition world, the folks who eat more of it are likely to be less health-conscious than those who opt for the tofu slab. That’s why patterns like these emerge: Eating less meat goes hand-in-hand with other health-promoting choices, so we often see vegetarians trumping omnivorous control groups in terms of health markers.

Of course, with the paleo movement gaining force and more studies emerging on health-conscious meat eaters, it’s becoming obvious that not all omnivorous diets are created equal. The existing literature we have on paleo diets shows that folks can slash their risk factors for heart disease while still eating plenty of meat.

The B12/homocysteine/heart disease connection

If you’ll notice from some of the studies above, higher homocysteine (linked to B12 deficiency) is a common theme with vegetarians. Chronically elevated homocysteine may damage the lining of arteries and probably contribute to atherosclerosis—making this a major issue for vegetarians who either absorb B12 poorly or skimp on their supplements.

Unfortunately, not all veggie proponents got the memo. Dr. John McDougall, staunch believer in a meat-disease link, doesn’t seem to think B12 deficiency (and the ensuing elevated homocysteine) is anything to worry about:

…an otherwise healthy strict vegetarian’s risk of developing a disease from B12 deficiency by following a sensible diet is extremely rare—less than one chance in a million.
Take a moment to compare the possible consequences of your dietary decisions. You could choose to eat lots of B12-rich animal foods and avoid the one-in-a-million chance of developing a reversible anemia and/or even less common, damage to your nervous system. However, this decision puts you at a one-in-two chance of dying prematurely from a heart attack or stroke; a one-in-seven chance of breast cancer or a one-in-six chance of prostate cancer.
How many vegans have you met with B12 deficiency anemia or nervous system damage? I bet not one! Furthermore, you have never even heard of such a problem unless you have read the attention-seeking headlines of newspapers or medical journals.

That’s from a 2007 newsletter of his (probably my favorite blood-pressure-booster of all time). Did you catch his drift? B12 deficiency is just media hype. High homocysteine isn’t a problem compared to the artery-clogging havoc animal foods stir up. That wily New England Journal of Medicine is trying to compete with Cosmo and the National Enquirer by smearing the reputation of the meatless.

But just for kicks, let’s see what those sensationalist medical journals are trying to scare us with:
Quit with the fear mongering, medical journals!

Really though, I find it alarming that any educated vegan doctor is still sweeping the B12 issue under the (man-made-material) rug. Thanks to wonky claims about B12-associated problems being nearly impossible, some vegetarians and vegans are under the impression that high homocysteine isn’t anything to be concerned about, or that meat eaters are the ones who’ll succumb to its problems. In reality, this is probably one of the biggest threats to their animal-loving hearts.

Anyway, here’s the gist of this post:

Since so many vegetarian-versus-omnivore studies are comparing a complete lifestyle overhaul (health-savvy vegetarianism) with health indifference (standard “eat-whatever’s-there” omnivorism), it’s pretty hard to find a vegetarian study that can actually isolate the effects of meat. When a vegetarian’s main diet change is avoiding animal flesh rather than emphasizing fresh produce and moving away from refined foods, the health outcomes aren’t much different than those of standard omnivores (except for the added burden of higher homocysteine).

The end.

Just kidding. Three more things:
  1. Jimmy Moore kindly invited me back on his show for encore week. The interview is here, but he’s been having server problems and I’m not sure when that link will be working again. If it’s broken, just pretend I said something clever and carry on with your day.
  2. For any raw foodists in the house, I recently wrote an article for Frugivore Magazine about how to not ruin your teeth on a raw food diet. It’s a more up-to-date version of the dental posts I wrote last year on this blog.
  3. In case the grapevine didn’t reach your ears, January is gluten-free month. If you eat gluten-containing foods and are curious how you’d fare without them, now’s a good time for a little self-experimenting.
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