Vegetarian diet tied to lower risk of death

Vegetarians tend to have a reduced risk for all-cause and cause-specific deaths, especially among men and younger people, reveals a study. However, older vegetarians appear to be at increased risk for stroke and dementia, but this finding needs further investigation.

Data from the Adventist Health Study-2 cohort were used in this prospective study. The authors determined mortality between study baseline, 2002–2007, and follow-up through 2015. They also gathered dietary data at baseline using a validated quantitative food frequency questionnaire and categorized these into nonvegetarian, semi-vegetarian, pesco-vegetarian, lacto-ovovegetarian, and vegan.

Cox proportional hazards regression models and competing risk methods were used to assess all-cause and cause-specific mortalities.

A total of 88,400 participants with 971,424 person-years of follow-up were analysed. Results were reported pairwise as estimated at ages 65 and 85 years due to age dependence of many hazard ratios (HRs), according to the authors.

Vegetarians had lower risks of mortality versus nonvegetarians: overall (HR, 0.89, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.83–0.95), renal failure (HR, 0.52, 95 percent CI, 0.38–0.70), infectious disease (HR, 0.57, 95 percent CI, 0.40–0.82), diabetes (HR, 0.51, 95 percent CI, 0.33–0.78), select cardiac (HR, 0.75, 95 percent CI, 0.65–0.87), and ischaemic heart diseases causes (HR, 0.73, 95 percent CI, 0.59–0.90).

Likewise, vegans, lacto-ovovegetarians, and pesco-vegetarians had reduced risks of total mortality and some similar cause-specific mortalities.

On the other hand, older vegetarians were found to have higher cause-specified neurologic deaths, especially stroke (HR, 1.17, 95 percent CI, 1.02–1.33), dementia (HR, 1.13, 95 percent CI, 1.00–1.27), and Parkinson’s disease (HR, 1.37, 95 percent CI, 0.98–1.91).

“Results in Black subjects for vegetarian/nonvegetarian comparisons largely followed the same trends, but HRs were less precise owing to smaller numbers,” the authors said.