Vegetarians May Have Lower Mortality Risk

By Kelly Young

Eating a vegetarian diet is associated with a reduced mortality risk, according to a study in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Researchers studied 73,000 Seventh-day Adventists, who were asked about details of their diet at baseline. About 52% were classified as vegetarian, including some who ate meat or fish occasionally. Over a median follow-up of 6 years, vegetarians had a 12% lower overall mortality risk than nonvegetarians, after adjustment for confounders. The benefits of a vegetarian diet were more pronounced in men than in women. Of the subgroups of vegetarians, those who also ate fish had the lowest mortality risk.

A commentator who is vegetarian offers this advice to clinicians: "Our debates about the superiority of one diet over another have not served the public well. It is time to acknowledge the common features of diets associated with good clinical outcomes and to focus our attention on helping patients avoid the intense commercial pressures to eat otherwise."