Do Vegetarians Live Longer? Here's What Science Says (mic.com)

[eppur_se_muova]

Mic By Liz Rowley
22 hours ago

For some, a decision to become a vegetarian, or to adopt a reduced-meat diet, can be met with a degree of friction from family, friends or peers. It's rare, for example, to meet a vegetarian who hasn't been quizzed on their source of protein, or hasn't been asked to present an explanation for their diet. One bit of fodder for that conversation could be longevity, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, with research conducted by Loma Linda University, a Seventh-day Adventist college in California.

According to the study, "Some evidence suggests vegetarian dietary patterns may be associated with reduced mortality, but the relationship is not well established."

The method of research surveyed mortality rates among 73,308 Seventh-Day Adventist individuals, both men and women. And between 2002 and 2007, researchers looked to five dietary patterns as variables: non-vegetarian, semi-vegetarian, pesco-vegetarian, lacto-ovo-vegetarian, and vegan. According to the Huffington Post, the results of the endeavor found that mortality rates during the study's timeframe were 12% lower for vegetarians, compared to non-vegetarians, whereas vegans saw an even lower mortality rate during the timeframe, or a 15% reduced risk of death.

Pesco-vegetarian, or vegetarians who make the exception to include fish in their diets, saw a 19% lower mortality rate as compared to non-vegetarians, according to the study, whereas lacto-ovo-vegetarians (vegetarians who eat eggs and non-vegetarian dairy products) saw a 9% lower mortality rate than non-vegetarians. And compared to meat-eaters, semi-vegetarians had an 8% lower risk of death during the study's timeframe.

Certain foods have been tied to lower mortality rates, according to the study, among them fruit, nuts, green salad, a Mediterranean diet, plant-based diets and vegetarian diets, whereas other certain foods, such as meat, eggs and animal-based low carbohydrate diets, may prove to have the inverse effect.
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more: http://news.yahoo.com/vegetarians-live-longer-heres-science-195100517.html

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1710093&resultClick=24 {Note that the study was puslished in 2013}

[Warpy]

1. They found something similar after WWII in the UK

Everything was rationed except vegetables, which were plentiful, and alcohol, which got expensive. Meat and fat were especially strictly rationed, what had been considered a person's daily intake had to last a week. They found sharply lowered morbidity and mortality, deaths from bombing excluded.

So the data have been in for 70 years: lowering fat and meat extends life. Unfortunately, people want to enjoy what life they have, so don't expect it to catch on as the majority lifestyle.