Because many vegetarians and vegans eat a high-oxalate diet, I have been interested to see if a prospective study might find a higher risk of kidney stones.

A recently released report from EPIC-Oxford measured the risk of being hospitalized for a kidney stone over the course of five years for people in various diet groups (1). Vegetarians (including vegans) had a 31% lower risk (.69, .48–0.98) as compared to high meat-eaters.

The other diet groups were:

Moderate meat-eaters, 50–99 g of meat per day – 0.80 (.57–1.11)
Low meat-eaters, < 50 g of meat per day – 0.52 (.35–0.80)
Fish-eaters – .73 (.48–1.11)

Oxalate intake was not measured.

I have updated Oxalate at VeganHealth.org with this info.

The authors also found a correlation between zinc intake and kidney stones. However, this finding barely reached statistical significance and the rate of kidney stones were very low in this population (.6% over five years). Kidney stones were not a common enough side effect in the recent Cochrane Database Analysis of clinical trials on zinc to be mentioned in their report.

Considering all of this, I am not worried that a modest zinc supplement will lead to a kidney stone.

References

1. Turney BW, Appleby PN, Reynard JM, Noble JG, Key TJ, Allen NE. Diet and risk of kidney stones in the Oxford cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). Eur J Epidemiol. 2014 Apr 22. [Epub ahead of print] | link

On April 2, 2014, Medscape sent out a Special Report that included a link to a video and article, Calcium + Vitamin D: Surprises From Long-term Follow-up. You probably need to sign up for a free account to view the article.

Here are some excerpts from the article which was about the Women’s Health Initiative study:

“In this large trial, more than 36,000 postmenopausal women aged 50-79 years were randomly assigned to treatment with a combination of calcium carbonate at a dose of 1000 mg elemental calcium plus vitamin D3 400 IU daily, or placebo.

“We now have 3 lines of evidence of benefit for calcium plus vitamin D supplementation: the reduction in hip fracture seen among adherent women, the reduction in vertebral fracture in the intention-to-treat analyses, and the improvement or better results for bone mineral density…

“In terms of all cancers, among the women who had low baseline intake of vitamin D, there was a statistically significant 9% reduction in total cancer with supplementation, and also a marginally significant 9% reduction in all-cause mortality.”

The report also said that there was no increase in cardiovascular disease for women taking supplements.

I have changed the title of the VeganHealth.org article I was Vegan for a While, But… to Tips for New Vegans.

While most of the facts are the same, I have substantially changed the wording to a more friendly tone and included a link to The Plant Plate, Ginny Messina’s vegan food guide pyramid.

I hope people find it useful for informing new vegans about the nutrition issues they should be aware of when going vegan. (Link)

A recently released study measured the omega-3 status of vegans and then placed those with low omega-3 status on an EPA/DHA supplement for two months (1).

The cross-sectional part of the study found that 166 vegans had an average EPA level of .63% (of total fatty acids in red blood cells) and an average DHA level of 2.4%. In comparison to other studies that have measured the percentage of EPA/DHA in meat-eaters in similar ways, those numbers are on the low side, especially for EPA.

The researchers compared a group of the male vegans to a group of male soldiers deployed to Iraq who had very low fish intakes and the vegans had significantly higher levels of EPA and slightly lower levels of DHA.

The researchers then took a group of vegans with low omega-3 levels and gave them a supplement of 172 mg DHA and 82 mg EPA for 2 months. EPA went from about .6% to .8% and DHA increased from about 2.3% to 3.25%.

In other words, this supplementation schedule was adequate for raising EPA/DHA levels to those typical of fish-eaters.

I have updated Omega-3 Fatty Acid Recommendations for Vegetarians with this information.

References

1. Sarter B, Kelsey KS, Schwartz TA, Harris WS. Blood docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid in vegans: Associations with age and gender and effects of an algal-derived omega-3 fatty acid supplement. Clin Nutr. 2014 Mar 14. pii: S0261-5614(14)00076-4. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2014.03.003. [Epub ahead of print] | link

Ginny Messina has written a response to Kris Gunnars of Authority Nutrition, Paleo Advocates Get Vegan Diets (and Saturated Fat) Wrong.

Previous research has shown that it takes at least 3.7 g of the short-chain omega-3 fatty acid, ALA, to increase DHA levels in vegetarians in the short term, with the longest trial lasting 6 weeks.

A new study from Loma Linda University (1) put a group of lacto-ovo vegetarians, average age of 38, on three different daily regimens for 8 weeks each:

– 1 oz of walnuts (3.0 g of ALA)
– 1 regular egg (110 mg DHA)
– 1 fortified egg (~500 mg DHA, 40 mg EPA, 1 g ALA)

The ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 was 6 to 1 in the walnut phase, which is relatively low for a vegetarian diet, but DHA levels did not increase. The ratio of total cholesterol to HDL was lower in the walnut treatment compared to both egg treatments and there were no significant differences for any inflammatory markers.

In conclusion, 8 weeks of 1 oz walnuts daily improved cholesterol markers but did not increase DHA levels.

I have updated Omega-3 Fatty Acid Recommendations for Vegetarians with this information.

References

1. Burns-Whitmore B, Haddad E, Sabaté J, Rajaram S. Effects of supplementing n-3 fatty acid enriched eggs and walnuts on cardiovascular disease risk markers in healthy free-living lacto-ovo-vegetarians: a randomized, crossover, free-living intervention study. Nutr J. 2014 Mar 27;13(1):29. | link

 
Just added two links to both Soy What’s the Harm: Hexane and Response to Not Soy Fast:

• Hexane in Soy Food – Berkeley Wellness | May 01, 2012
• Do Veggie Burgers Contain Hexane? – Shereen Jegtvig, MS | Updated Feb 07, 2014

Thanks, Brenda!

 
Just added the article, Irritable Bowel Syndrome – from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics to Digestion at VeganHealth.org.

Dr. Michael Greger is up to his foils again!

He had some very interesting videos on phytates and cancer recently (start here).

But even more exciting, Dr. Greger just posted the first episode from his Latest in Clinical Nutrition: Volume 18 DVD – Blood Type Diet Debunked. In it, he discusses a paper from the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association which I had not previously been aware of when writing my posts on the blood type diet.

And even if Dr. G didn’t have anything new, let’s face it, it’s just fun to debunk that diet!

 
Vegetarian Nutrition: What Does the Science Say?
    – a presentation by Jack Norris, RD
Wed May 7, 2014
7:30 – 9:30 pm
First United Methodist Church
Community Center room
Corner of 12th and Jackson near OSU
Corvallis, OR

Talk is free.
2.0 hours of CPE are available for RDs/DTRs for $25.

Brought to you by:
Corvallis Veg Education Group & Vegans & Vegetarians at OSU

From a reader:

“[A]fter explaining [vitamin B12 and vegans] to my doctor, she read up on this, and in the past few months, has helped multiple vegan patients with vague neurological symptoms but normal serum B12! She now recommends MMA testing to her vegan patients, and would never have found their problems without it.”