Risks and Benefits of Vegetarianism vs Omnivore

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

A recent article in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry reviews Chemistry behind Vegetarianism. There was a recent buzz around this article and most of the initial headlines were confusing and seemed to indicate that Vegans at Higher Risk for Cardiovascular Disease. It was hard to discern this from the abstract but, luckily, Google was able to find pdf of this article where you can find a table with relative benefits and risks of vegetarianism compared with omnivore. According to this table, omnivores have a significantly higher cluster of cardiovascular risk factors compared with vegetarians, including increased body mass index, waist to hip ratio, blood pressure, plasma total cholesterol, triacylglycerol and low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol levels. Compared with omnivores, vegetarians, especially vegans, on the other hand, have higher risk of blood platelet aggregation, iron deficiency anemia, vitamin B₁₂ deficiency and high levels of homocysteine. The article concludes suggesting that vegetarians, especially vegans, could benefit from increased dietary intake of vitamin B₁₂ and n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid. The list of foods high in vitamin B₁₂ includes ready-to-eat cereals, such as wheat flakes, bran flakes and oatmeals. The list of foods high in polyunsaturated fatty acids includes safflower, grapeseed, flaxseed, sunflowere oil and walnuts.

ResearchBlogging.org Li D (2011). Chemistry behind Vegetarianism. Journal of agricultural and food chemistry, 59 (3), 777-84 PMID: 21204526

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