{"id":14307,"date":"2019-09-27T00:04:02","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T00:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/squad\/?p=14307"},"modified":"2019-09-27T00:04:02","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T00:04:02","slug":"are-you-a-vegetarian-a-new-study-says-you-have-a-higher-stroke-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/nutrition\/are-you-a-vegetarian-a-new-study-says-you-have-a-higher-stroke-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You a Vegetarian? A New Study Says You Have A Higher Stroke Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vegetarians, in general, tend to have reduced risks for common health problems, including obesity and ischemic heart disease. But new research has found a surprising twist: vegetarians may have a slightly higher risk of stroke compared to meat-eaters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Analyzing diet<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Researchers looked at the data from 48,188 people with an average age of 45. They followed the participants\u2014who had no history of stroke or ischemic heart disease (IHD)\u2014for an average of 18.1 years. They divided the group into three smaller groups:<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> vegans and vegetarians (no meat or fish)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> pescatarians (fish but no meat)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> meat-eaters<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(The vegans were grouped in with the vegetarians because there weren\u2019t that many vegans in the study.)<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The team collected information on blood pressure, BMI and height, as well as overall food intake and nutrient levels (using a food questionnaire). They found that:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Compared to meat-eaters, pescatarians had a 13% lower rate of IHD.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Compared to meat-eaters, vegetarians had a 20% lower rate of IHD.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is likely due in part to the lower rates of diabetes and hypertension, and lower cholesterol and BMIs in those who don\u2019t eat meat. But even after adjusting for these factors, the meat-eaters still had a \u201cmarginally significant\u201d higher rate of IHD.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was surprising, however, was that vegetarians had a 20% higher rate of hemorrhagic (not ischemic) stroke compared to meat-eaters. But why would vegetarians be more likely than meat-eaters to have a stroke? The researchers theorize that it could be that vegetarians have lower levels of other circulating nutrients in their bloodstream, including vitamin B-12, vitamin D and essential amino acids.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Limitations of the study<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This study is by no means perfect and it\u2019s important to note the following:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The study was observational, so cause can\u2019t be proved.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The diets were self-reported, so there could be misreporting.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Diet can change over days, weeks and years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The scientists didn\u2019t have access to information about medications, such as statins, which could affect the results.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Most of the participants were white and European.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vegetarians, in general, tend to have reduced risks for common health problems, including obesity and ischemic heart disease. But new research has found a surprising twist: vegetarians may have a slightly higher risk of stroke compared to meat-eaters. Analyzing diet Researchers looked at the data from 48,188 people with an average age of 45. They [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[453],"tags":[1095],"class_list":["post-14307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nutrition","tag-vegetarian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}