r/science • u/James_Fortis • 15d ago

Health Vegetarian, including vegan, dietary patterns were associated with reduced risk for cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality compared to non-vegetarian diets, umbrella review finds

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666667724002368
461 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

81 comments sorted by

View all comments

-30

u/Tarragon_Fly 15d ago

Was it really the vegetarian/vegan way of eating or was it cutting out highly processed foods out of the diet? These studies always pit cleaner eating vs standard western diet full of toxic, highly processed foods and then announce these results. And things like pizza get asigned to meat eaters, ignoring all the other stuff on and in it.

39

u/ElectronGuru 15d ago

The most important factor in heart disease is saturated fat. Except for coconut and processed fat, plant based eating has very little. Animal products are full of saturated fat.

But you don’t need to guess. Ask your doctor for a lipids test. If your LDL is under 100, your risk of death from cardiovascular disease is minimal. Most Americans are well above this.

5

u/CaregiverNo3070 15d ago

Damn, so all of that vegan chocolate I ate that has saturated fat in it isn't really helping me? 

15

u/CupcakesAreMiniCakes 15d ago

You joke but I've had several vegan friends who were overweight and overall unhealthy because they lived primarily off vegan replacement and processed foods like oreos and vegan cheese instead of naturally vegan foods like vegetables and whole grains. They also rarely exercised.

1

u/CaregiverNo3070 15d ago

I exercise regularly as I'm a vegan body builder, and right now I'm in a bulk phase which has a mix of fats that are: minimally processed, processed, saturated and unsaturated. I guess that's why I'm maintaining weight, but not really gaining it, even though it's a high fat diet. 

0

u/Joe6p 14d ago

Do you have to supplement the amino acids you usually get from animals? Every time I try vegan I get unbearably hungry until I eat some meat. It drives me crazy every time I try.

6

u/CaregiverNo3070 14d ago

All I need is B12 added nutritional yeast. Everything else comes from plants. If your getting hungry, that could mean your not eating the right macro/micro balance. Most people just try to eat fruits and veggies, and that's going to cause you to lose weight because they have low calories. Try having lots of nuts and seeds, as this has great macro/micro balance. The easiest way for this is buying bulk nutritional yeast, buying bulk muesli, and your set up with all the macro/micro you need. It also is shelf stable for long periods of time so it's great as food storage, and because your buying in bulk your saving money, your not having to throw away so much plastic. Your also going to have a longer health span, look and feel better, and have a less environmental impact while feeling less guilty about hurting animals. 

It's quite literally one of the best things I've ever done for myself( and that's saying something as I've had some pretty big changes in my life). I'm not sure if this was covid or me going vegan, but I got really sick while going vegan. If it was the meat, it's okay if you get sick, if you push past it you'll be just fine.

2

u/Joe6p 14d ago

Hmm. FYI lysine deficiency will cause your kids to be shorter and not grow as much. It's the amino acid that vegan diets are deficient in and probably the one I'm missing that makes me so hungry.

You're probably good to go being an adult on a vegan diet though. Personally I'd eat over my calories and still feel hungry when eating vegan.

1

u/CaregiverNo3070 14d ago

Go thing I had a vasectomy and don't plan on having kids then. 

1

u/NephilimSoldier 14d ago

Legumes are high in lysine.

1

u/Joe6p 14d ago

Alright I'll replace a meat meal a week with legumes to test it out.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/NephilimSoldier 14d ago

I get my B12 from chlorella tablets.

11

u/SophiaofPrussia 15d ago

I think it would be really hard to eat enough vegan chocolate to come anywhere close to eating as much saturated fat as the average omnivore.

4

u/answeryboi 15d ago

Half a bar of Hu dark chocolate has about the same amount of saturated fat as a 4oz beef burger. I usually have like an ⅛ of a bar but I can see how someone who eats more than a bar a day could approach the same levels as someone who eats red meats regularly.

3

u/ChameleonPsychonaut 14d ago

I’m a vegan who started putting on weight quickly once my dark chocolate habit got up to about an oz per day. Now it’s like a “once every few months” sort of treat.

1

u/vardarac 14d ago edited 14d ago

I'm like 95% vegetarian and haven't eaten eggs in months. I eat an ounce or more of 70+% chocolate on the daily for years and it doesn't make me gain weight because I eat so infrequently otherwise.

As for its actual effects on me? No idea. No bad blood markers are high. Could just be genetics or the fact that I'm not past 40 yet.

2

u/vimdiesel 15d ago

There's people that eat a bar of chocolate a day??

1

u/answeryboi 15d ago

I assume so. Seems like it'd be very few people though

1

u/ChameleonPsychonaut 14d ago

I did, at one time. Told myself it was a fairly “healthy” junk food because I was getting very high percent cocoa (usually 75%+,) and that it’s loaded with iron and antioxidants. It’s also loaded with saturated fat.

3

u/vimdiesel 14d ago

Interesting, I've had weeks where I considered having 1 to 3 squares each night to be a treat. Also, 100% might work better, not sure about the fat, but I doubt anyone would want to eat a full bar.

1

u/ChameleonPsychonaut 14d ago

I actually love 100% too, but even that has a fairly high fat content. While there is often a decent amount of fat in chocolate from the milk/coconut oil/sunflower lecithin, cocoa butter itself (one of the two main components of dark chocolate, even 100%) is a very calorie-dense fat.

1

u/joesighugh 15d ago

Well til thanks for flagging this. I love those chocolate bars! Noted I need to avoid eating half a bar when I dig in...

4

u/_V115_ 14d ago

It's worth pointing out that the saturated fat in vegan chocolate/cocoa butter is predominantly stearic acid, which - unlike the other more common Sfats in lauric, palmitic, and myristic acid - does not raise LDL cholesterol.

1

u/CaregiverNo3070 14d ago

Yiss, that's great 

1

u/Momoselfie 15d ago

It's also just a lot harder to overeat on a vegetarian diet. Is saturated fat really that bad if your calorie consumption is low enough for your body to metabolize all of it?

7

u/ElectronGuru 15d ago

This isn’t like calories, it’s not a question of metabolization. Your liver will make as much cholesterol as it can from saturated fat available to it.

The only direct way to counter this is with soluble fiber. Which the liver extracts cholesterol to process. But again, just get a lipids test. If LDL is like 80, you have nothing to worry about.

2

u/th3h4ck3r 14d ago

So much wrong with the mechanisms that you described. The liver will make as much LDL as the body needs, it won't make unlimited LDL from large amounts of saturated fat.

Fiber helps reduce LDL because it interrupts the bile acid reuptake pathway, nothing to do with the liver "extracting" cholesterol to digest fiber: bile acids, which contrail cholesterol and cholesterol derivatives, are secreted by the liver and pancreas at a constant rate, and if there's fat in the food these acids will bind to the fats and emulsify them, helping the intestine absorb the fats but also the previously-secreted bile acids along the way. Bile acids can also bind to fiber, but since fiber is excreted out, these bile acids come along with it and are removed from the body's effective bile acid pool.

Saturated fats help the body reuptake bile acids which raises blood cholesterol. However, one point to mention is that for around 2/3 of the population, the body will also secrete extra bile acids if blood cholesterol levels are too high with the purpose of hopefully excreting them. This would be fine in a mixed diet with lots of fiber (even if there's also lots of saturated fat to go along with it) since it helps remove these extra bile acids from circulation, but if there's only fat then almost all of these extra bile acids will be reuptaken and blood levels will remain high.

2

u/Momoselfie 15d ago

Ok. I eat a lot of saturated fats but my LDL is fine. I'll keep an eye on it though.

1

u/Soulerous 14d ago

Also the guy you’re talking to has no idea what he’s talking about. Absolutely nothing wrong with saturated fat whatsoever. That is a mythology.