A vegetarian diet provides a wide range of health benefits. Research shows that vegetarians suffer less from many of the diseases associated with the typical Western diet, including obesity, coronary heart disease, hypertension, type II diabetes, diet-related cancers, biventricular disease, constipation and gall stones.
Vegetarian Diets Follow Dietary Guidelines:
A typical vegetarian diet reflects most of the dietary recommendations for healthy eating, being low in saturated fat and high in fibre, complex carbohydrates, and fresh fruit and vegetables.
Vegetarian diets Lower in Fat/Lipids -Vegetarian diets tend to be lower in total fat. Taber & Cook (1980) found lacto-ovo vegetarians to consume an average of 35% of energy as fat, compared to omnivores consuming over 40% of energy as fat. A study of the diets of a group of French vegetarians found they had a daily intake of 25% less fat than non-vegetarians (Millet, 1989).
Vegetarians also tend to eat proportionally more polyunsaturated fat to saturated fat compared with non-vegetarians. Animal products are the major sources of dietary saturated fat.
U.S. Vegetarian Health: Data from the Adventist Health Study- This is the only major, ongoing study on the general health and mortality of vegetarians in the U.S. Data was collected from 1976-1988. Of the 34,192 participants, all members of the Seventh-day Adventist church:
” 29% were vegetarian. ” 7-10% of the vegetarians were vegan. Compared to the non-vegetarians the above vegetarians had about:
” 1/2 the high blood pressure and diabetes
” 1/2 the colon cancer
” 2/3 the rheumatoid arthritis and prostate cancer
” Breast, lung, & uterine cancers tended to be lower in vegetarians but could have been due to random chance.
