Here’s something I’ve been mentioning in my talks lately. A 2000 study measured the percentage of calories as fat in the diet as well as cholesterol levels in a subset of EPIC-Oxford vegan and non-vegan men. Here is what they found:

Vegans ate 30% of their calories as fat compared to 34% for meat-eaters. Not a huge difference and many people would be horrified at such a high fat intake on behalf of the vegans. Yet, their cholesterol levels were well below what is commonly considered the danger zone.

What accounts for this? The vegans’ much lower intake of saturated fat probably explains a lot. But the vegans’ 20% fewer calories also probably accounts for much of their lower cholesterol levels. (Addendum 1/27/12: Additionally, higher fiber intake, zero or near-zero cholesterol intake, and lower total fat all likely contribute to the vegans’ lower cholesterol levels.)

Some people might point out that ideal cholesterol levels are actually less than 150 mg/dl, so 158 mg/dl is too high. While many clinical trials in people with heart disease (and normally on cholesterol-lowering medication) show a benefit to getting levels below 150 mg/dl, I have not seen evidence that this is ideal, or even desirable in people without diagnosed heart disease or normally high cholesterol. Instead, the observational studies I’ve seen measuring cholesterol levels and mortality have not shown a benefit from cholesterol levels less than 160 mg/dl.

I would not completely rule out the idea that studies have not shown reduced mortality in people with cholesterol levels less than 160 mg/dl because they have not included enough people with cholesterol levels that low and who do not have such low levels due to undiagnosed disease. But “not completely ruling out something” is a far cry from saying there is good evidence that it is true.

The reason I think this is particularly important is anecdotal evidence that people on long-term, low-fat diets can find them hard to stick with. I know there are some exceptions – people who find them easy to stick with, but I sense that there are more who find it difficult. When people crave meat, they tend to think they are craving the protein. But meat is also about 50% fat on average and it would not surprise me if such people are often craving fat as much or more than protein. Eating a diet closer to 30% fat might prevent such cravings.

Yes, lots of qualifiers above that I’m not 100% certain of everything I’m saying. But I think there is enough evidence that I should share it with readers rather than just keeping it to myself until “further studies” are done.

Reference

Allen NE, Appleby PN, Davey GK, Key TJ. Hormones and diet: low insulin-like growth factor-I but normal bioavailable androgens in vegan men. Br J Cancer. 2000 Jul;83(1):95-7. Link

The Vegan Culinary Experience (VCE), written by Chef Jason Wyrick, is the first and only vegan culinary magazine in the world. It’s also a free PDF (click on the magazine cover image on the VCE home page to download).

The current issue, Healthy Eats, has an article by yours truly, Thriving on a Vegan Diet. If you’ve followed my writing, there aren’t any surprises here, but it’s a good summary of what you need to know to stay healthy on a vegan diet.

Your Daily Dose of Vegan Outreach has reported that, “In 2009, 2010, and 2011, hundreds of millions fewer land animals were raised and slaughtered for food in the U.S. than at the peak in 2008.”

Looks like our efforts are having an impact!

In 2009, preliminary cross-sectional data on blood pressure rates among various diet groups were reported from Adventist Health Study 2. Just today, a more thorough report was posted at PubMed. The 2012 report only included whites and the results did not appear to be adjusted. But, in any case, vegans had a 63% reduced risk of having high blood pressure, as compared to regular meat-eaters, which was highly statistically significant. Lacto-ovo vegetarians had a 43% reduced rate, which was also statistically significant. More details can be seen in Table 12 of Disease Markers of Vegetarians at VeganHealth.org.

Body mass index was able to account for most of the differences in blood pressure between the diet groups, though other factors probably play a small role, such as higher potassium and lower sodium intakes, and lower insulin levels and blood viscosity.

Reference

Pettersen BJ, Anousheh R, Fan J, Jaceldo-Siegl K, Fraser GE. Vegetarian diets and blood pressure among white subjects: results from the Adventist Health Study-2 (AHS-2). Public Health Nutr. 2012 Jan 10:1-8. [Epub ahead of print] Link

Ginny Messina: Should You Go Vegan to Get Skinny?

A few months ago a study was published on carnitine absorption in the muscles of vegetarians. Here is what I added to VeganHealth.org’s Vegan Weightlifting: What Does the Science Say?, which is where most of my info on carnitine resides (italics added to the new sentences):

“Carnitine levels tend to be lower in people eating lower fat, higher carbohydrate diets. When intake of carnitine is low, less carnitine is excreted. Vegans and lacto-ovo vegetarians have lower blood levels of carnitine. Researchers in one study did not think the lower carnitine levels of vegetarians were unhealthy. It is not known if the lower levels have any bearing on athletic performance. A 2011 study showed vegetarians’ muscles to have a lower ability to absorb carnitine than omnivores. Vegetarians also excreted less carnitine than omnivores, indicating that other tissues or muscles that were not tested were possibly absorbing the carnitine.”

Some added thoughts:

This paper included two studies. In the first study, subjects were given both insulin and carnitine intravenously. The researchers thought the insulin would help enhance carnitine absorption. I would not rule out the possibility that the insulin might have confounded the study in terms of what normally would occur.

In the second study, subjects ate 3 g of carnitine in one dose and had their measurements taken about 24 hours later, only one time. This would give the body very little time to adapt to a larger carnitine intake.

Finally, it is still not clear that vegetarians’ lower levels of muscle carnitine have any physiological significance. I once supplemented with carnitine for a few days and experienced no noticeable health improvement (such as increased energy). But I do know of one person who did very poorly on a vegan diet until he started supplementing with carnitine.

Reference

Stephens FB, Marimuthu K, Cheng Y, Patel N, Constantin D, Simpson EJ, Greenhaff PL. Vegetarians have a reduced skeletal muscle carnitine transport capacity. Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 Sep;94(3):938-44. | Link

On December 5, the Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG) released results of their latest poll of the number of vegetarians in the United States. Here is my quick analysis:

VRG found that 5% of adults “Never eat meat, fish, seafood, or poultry.” The margin of error was approximately 3%, meaning the real number could be from 2 to 8%. This continues a long trend of VRG polls showing the percentage of vegetarians in the United States to be steadily increasing. However, none of these polls, going back to 1994, has shown an increase greater than the margin of error above the 3% of the population in the U.S. that did not eat chicken at the time.

It should be pointed out, though, that even keeping up with the increase in the U.S. population is impressive. In 1994, the population of the U.S. was 260 million. In 2011, it is almost 312 million. So even to keep the percentage of vegetarians at 3% would be an increase of 1.5 million vegetarians. If it has really gone from about 3 to about 5%, then the increase has been 7.8 million people. And this does not count all the semi-vegetarians or people who have become opposed to factory-farming in the past 15 years.

It is slow progress, but lately it seems to be picking up momentum. With the hard work of organizations like Vegan Outreach, those trends will continue.

Did I mention Vegan Outreach is having an end of the year fundraising drive in which your donation can be doubled? Click here to donate. Thank you!

Harvard School of Public Health: Nutrition Insurance Policy: A Daily Multivitamin

From the article:

“Looking at all the evidence—from epidemiological studies on diet and health, to biochemical studies on the minute mechanisms of disease—the potential health benefits of taking a standard daily multivitamin appear to outweigh the potential risks for most people.”

They reference the Iowa Women’s Health Study which I blogged about on October 11.

(Note: I am not able to recommend or assess any particular brand of multivitamin.)

I was out of town for two weeks, had a lot of Vegan Outreach (VO) work to catch up on, and hope to get back to nutrition blogging soon.

In the meantime, VO is running a matching donation drive — we are trying to match $102,000. We started November 1 and are still just over halfway to our goal.

Every day, in all kinds of weather, VO leafleters are handing out our hard-hitting booklets to thousands of college students. In 2011, we handed booklets to over 1.5 million students at about 1,000 schools!

These efforts are creating a generation of young people who oppose factory farming and view animals as deserving respect. And we are starting to see this reflected in polls and rates of meat consumption.

Please become part of this change by donating to VO’s end of year fundraising drive! We cannot let up the momentum now.

And if that’s not enough reason, remember that VO provides the financial support for VeganHealth.org. Without VO, what organization would be willing to present all the scientific research on veg diets? Who would take the time to provide free advice to people who are having questions or problems?

Please donate now by clicking here, and your donation will be doubled.

Thank you very much for being a part of this change!

Jack

If you missed my interview with Elisa Rodriquez, RD, LDN that appeared on One Green Planet, it has been re-posted on Elisa’s site, EatUrVeggies.com.

And tomorrow, Wednesday, November 30, EatUrVeggies will have info on how to win a free copy of Vegan For Life!