Non-vegetarians live longer than vegetarians

Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 36, 873-877 Nov 1982

Vegetarianism, dietary fiber, and mortality
ML Burr and PM Sweetnam

This paper can be accessed at: http://www.ajcn.org/content/36/5/873.short

The table below presents the annual death rates for vegetarians and nonvegetarians derived from the raw data in the seven-year Burr and Sweetnam study. As can be seen, the "marked" difference between vegetarian and nonvegetarian men in Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD) was only .11 percent. The difference in all-cause death rate was in the opposite direction, a fact that Burr and Sweetnam failed to mention. Moreover, the IHD and death rates among females were actually slightly greater for heart disease and substantially greater for all causes in vegetarians than in nonvegetarians.

Annual Death Rates of Vegetarians and Nonvegetarians

                                      IHD   All-Cause

Male vegetarians           .22%     .93%

Male nonvegetarians     .33%     .88%

Female vegetarians       .14%     .86%

Female nonvegetarians .10%     .54%

These results are absolutely NOT supportive of the proposition that vegetarianism protects against either heart disease or all-cause mortalities. In fact, they indicate that vegetarianism is more dangerous for women than for men.

AMAZON UK Vegetarian Myth, The
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