OSTEOPOROSIS: AN APPLE DAY?
A vegetarian diet doesn't pose risk
A nutritional study has found that even the most restrictive vegetarian diet can be bone friendly.
Australian and Vietnamese scientists studied 105 postmenopausal vegan Buddhist nuns. [Vegans forgo meat, seafood, eggs and dairy products and eat only plant-based food.] They were compared with 105 women who were not vegetarians.
"We showed that although the vegans studied do indeed have lower protein and calcium intakes, their bone density is virtually identical to that of people who eat a wide variety of foods, including animal protein," reports Tuan Nguyen, PhD, a professor at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney. "For the five percent of people in Western countries who choose to be vegetarians, this is very good news."
Still, the researchers note that they did not measure Vitamin D intake, which is important for healthy bones, nor lifestyle factors-variables that may affect the outcomes for vegetarians in different parts of the world.
And, a newer report by these same researchers, who also reviewed various findings of previous studies, determined that vegetariansin general may have five percent lower bone mineral density than meateaters, altough they could make no conclusion about fracture risk.
The latter fiding was publishedin the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.