Tonight at dinner my mom told me that vegetarians die younger than those who eat meat, even when getting enough nutrition. I didn't know what to say because I've never heard of this before... is there any truth in it?

Doubtful. The statistics that I have read (This is from memory) list vegetarians living 3 - 5 years longer than omnis and vegan living 7 or so years longer. I am pretty sure that is from the Seventh Day Adventists studies, probably from "Food Revolution" by John Robbins

But, I wouldn't put too much faith in those statistics either. Chances are that veg*ns do live longer than omni's but is it due to their dietary choices or other lifestyle choices. Most veg*ns I know exercise more, don't smoke, drink less and make healthier choices in general.

I would ask your mother where she got her statistics from cause I have never seen a legit study that says veggies die younger. But that does not mean that it does not exist.

Don't forget that quality of life counts a lot more than an actual number of years!

The mother means vegetarians die younger because she goes out at night and guns them down. :p

I don't have a copy of Food Revolution, but Diet For A New America briefly addresses this, and say that studies beginning shortly after WWII showed a strong correlation between cultures around the world that eat large amounts of animal flesh and a shorter life expectancy than those who eat less.

Examples of cultures that ate lots of meat and had short life expectancies - Eskimos, Laplanders, Greenlanders, Russian Kurgi tribes.

Cultures that ate little meat and had long life expectancies - Russian Caucasians, Yucatan Indians, East Indian Todas, the Hunzakuts of the Pakistani Himalayas, the Vilcambas of Ecuador, and the Abkhasians of the Black Sea area.

At first they thought this differential might be because the meaters lived in extreme climates and under very harsh conditions, but they found that some of the long-lived cultures lived in conditions just as harsh. They also noticed that the long-lived cultures showed remarkably few signs of the degenerative geriatric diseases that are common in meater cultures.

DelicGrape,

Didn't you just tell us that both your parents smoke? ...They're already defying logic and their own advice. I wouldn't count on their opinion too highly in this matter. (Even though they're your parents.)

I was looking and I found this.

http://www.ivu.org/oxveg/Talks/longtermhealthveg.html

"The researchers found that a combination of different lifestyle choices could influence life expectancy by as much as 10 years. Among the lifestyle choices investigated, a vegetarian diet was estimated to confer an extra 1½ to 2 years of life."

I hope that helps.

Thankyou for all of the information. And VeganforHealth, yes that was me, unfortunetly my mom doesn't like to look in the mirror when saying those kinds of things... and when I fire back at her she gets defensive.

The term 'vegetarian' encompasses such a wide range of possible diets that arguments like this are a waste of time. Have your mother read "The China Study" (Campbell, amazon.com, $17) for an excellent overview of the research regarding plant-based, whole foods diets vs. omni. Then, and only then, allow the subject to be discussed again. :guitar:

The mother means vegetarians die younger because she goes out at night and guns them down. :p

lol, my family is constantly picking on me! My Dad is doing really great though, like the other night he helped me find something veg from the place we were ordering from. :)

There's a tribe in the Himalayas that prove a vegan diet can allow you to live to a ripe old age - without supplements, presumably, as they have very limited contact with modern civilasation. Their environment and farming methods must allow them to get everything they need the way it was once possible for many Westerners to. Even if every veggie on Earth lived shorter lives than omnis, that wouldn't prove that a veggie diet has to be bad. Just that people hadn't found a way to make it good, which, if you trust the statistics I've seen, is disproven anyway. Try telling omnis that the fact that they are more likely to get various diseases is a reason they should not eat meat, and they won't like it. They'd say 'it is possible to be healthy on meat - it's just that most don't bother.' The same rule should then apply to vegetarianism. Veggies I think are more likely to bother, but if they get it wrong that doesn't mean the basic idea is flawed.
Here're two exerps from an article posted on veganforums.com:

The few thousand Brok-pa Aryans have over 5,000 years lived in these hostile terrain at 15,000 ft altitude, subsisting on a vegan diet.

Both men and women wear colourful costume, decorating their hair with flowers, and are full of joi de vivre. They live in harmony with nature, and are cheerful and stress-free despite living in small rock shelters. They trek long distances.

There are an unusually large number of Aryans above 70 years. Many are active even at 90.

I read a book by Deepak Chopra (yeah, I know!) about aging, and although I have trouble with his mystification of everything, I did enjoy all the statistics he sited about the effects of diet, exercise, and attitude on aging. Basically it came down to, a largely vegetarian diet, plenty of exercise and fresh air, and a positive, happy attitude lead to a longer, better life.

vegetarianism tends to be a healthy, life-long diet. but, studies are often either too vague ('look at how long asians live') or too specific ('testing octegenarians for cholesterol levels, those maintianing a vegetarian diet had higher morbidity than those with an omnivorous diet'). In the first case, we're looking to a specialized population who may not view the term 'vegetarian' as we do (for example, fish being a common ingreidient in asian 'vegetarian' diets), and in the second, looking at a specialized population of elders who were walking toward death anyway, where those who had lower cholesterol levels died before those who didn't. I think that when yo uget to working with a small group of 80-90 yr olds, it's basicly roullette.

so, i think the 'jury is still out.' but, when your mom comes at you with these kinds of questions, ask her to proove it. Say "where did you hear that? which scientific studies demonstrate it?" etc.

A friend of mine and I had a conversation about men vs women and the 'way we think' and he pointed to sociological/psychological studies (which are easily cast away as forumlated by the culture that they're seeking to demonstrate or prove), and when i provided studies of brain scans while viewing certain materials, he balked and said "well, i heard. . ." and i said 'heard or studied?" and he had to give in. he didnt know. i called his bluff.

call her bluff.

There are an unusually large number of Aryans above 70 years. Many are active even at 90.
Wow!

I don't remember where, but I read that vegetarians live longer than vegans, who both live longer than omnivores. Their reasoning for the vegans having slightly shorter life spans was that vegans who are dying now were vegans in like the 1950s and 1960s, when good nutritional advice and good vegan food was harder to find. But I dunno!!! It seems to me that when my generation is old, vegans will outlive everyone. :)

Vegetarians die younger if they don't eat properly (or at all).

Otherwise, they have a shot at living much longer (and with better quality of life) than their meat-eating counterparts.

Ceiling: the reason veg*ns in past generations died younger is that they didn't know the correlation between proper B12/folate/B6 levels and homocysteine levels. Good vegan food has always been easy to find as they had produce, beans and grains back in the 50s and 60s, too. It's just there were some very wonky ideas about what "healthy" was back in that time and some very odd ideas about what to do to obtain that health. :)

I think there may have been some studies where vegetarians died younger if they didn't get enough of the proper omega-3 fatty acids.

http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/veganhealth is a great source of info. the site veganhealth.org is a reliable source of nutrition info imo which is by a veganism supporter, but it doesn't try to distort the truth to make veganism look any healthier than it is.

Tonight at dinner my mom told me that vegetarians die younger than those who eat meat, even when getting enough nutrition. I didn't know what to say because I've never heard of this before... is there any truth in it?
veggies live longer due to their healthy diet...it cant be good for a human to eat all that fat on meat? its fatty, greasy and horrible! so tell your mum to have a look for herself...........
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2006/jan2006_awsi_01.htm

I find this very hard to believe. There is a statistic to back up everyone's agenda. You just have to be aware of the source of the info.

Well according to the hare krishna, vegetarians are less likely to die of kidney failure and heart disease. My husband is a paramedic, and most of the 50 year olds who are dying off are dying from heart failure, diabetes (type 2) and kidney failure. I think much of this has to do with overall diet and lifestyle. You can be vegetarian, but still not have a healthy diet, lack of excercise or continue to smoke. On the other hand, you can be an omni and be in very good health. I think it's too general of a question, there are too many variables: gender, race, genes, lifestyle, diet, etc. But granted, we all know if you're eating McD's everyday, smoking and drinking and lying on the couch, you're probably not going to make it to 60.

I wish one of the mods would add a question mark or something to the end of the title of this thread. It looks like a statement and not a question and could scare some of the newbies.