Who Researched:
Nathalie T. Burkert, Joanna Muckenhuber, Franziska Grobschadl, Eva Rasky, Wolfgang Freidl
Where Researched:
Austria
When Researched:
Research took place March 2006 through February 2007
Published February 07, 2014
Research Methods Used:
Cross-sectional study:
–First Step–the sample was taken from the Austrian Health Interview Survey, which interviewed 15,474 individual across Austria. The interviewees were asked about their day-to-day diets and placed into four categories:
Vegetarian diet, carnivorous diet rich in fruits and vegetables, carnivorous diet less rich in meat, carnivorous diet rich in meat.
–Second Step–all vegetarians were categorized by their sex, age (within 5 year spans), and socioeconomic status. A vegetarian falling into a certain demographic (ex: male, 20-25 years old, low socioeconomic status) was then paired with someone falling into the same demographic from the carnivorous diet rich in fruits and vegetables category, the carnivorous diet less rich in meat category, and the carnivorous diet rich in meat category. Therefore, there were 330 subjects selected from each dietary habit category.
–Third Step–face to face interviews were conducted to find out each subject’s socio-demographic characteristics, health-related behavior, diseases, medical treatments and psychological aspects.
–Fourth Step–the researchers compared individuals from each dietary habit category: one’s body mass index, one’s physical exercise habits, one’s smoking behavior and one’s typical alcohol consumption.
–Fifth Step–the researchers compared individuals’ overall health from each dietary habit category: self-reported health, levels of impairment from disorders, chronic diseases (if present), allergies (if present), cancer (if present), mental health ailments (if present) and urinary incontinence (if present).
What Was Found:
–BMI: vegetarians have the lowest mean BMI, followed by subjects eating a carnivorous diet less rich in meat, followed by subjects eating a carnivorous diet rich in fruits and vegetables, followed by subjects eating a carnivorous diet rich in meat.
–Physical exercise habits: no significant difference between dietary habit categories was found.
Smoking behavior: the number of cigarettes smoked per day did not differ between the various dietary habit groups
–Alcohol consumption: Subjects eating a vegetarian diet/a carnivorous diet rich in fruits and vegetables consume significantly less alcohol than those subjects eating a carnivorous diet less rich in meat/a carnivorous diet rich in meat.
–Vegetarians overall: self-report poorer health, higher levels of impairment from disorders, more chronic diseases than those eating a carnivorous diet less rich in meat, more suffer from allergies, more suffer from cancer, more suffer from mental health ailments, consult doctors more often than those eating a carnivorous diet less rich in meat, vaccinated less often, and make use of preventive check-ups less frequently.
–Carnivorous diet rich in meat overall: more urinary incontinence
What This Means:
When comparing vegetarians to the other dietary habit categories, vegetarians have an overall lower quality of “physical health”, “environment”, and “social relationships”. This study has revealed that vegetarians report poorer health, follow medical treatment more frequently, have worse preventive health care practices and have a “lower” quality of life. The subjects in this study that follow a vegetarian diet have a significantly higher cancer incidence, suffer more often from anxiety disorders and/or depression, and require more medical treatment. Of course, like any study, these results do not necessarily show causation or imply that every vegetarian will have a lower quality of physical health, environment and social relationships.