Are vegetarians really healthier in the long-run?

There is a great deal of research that indicates vegetarians tend to be more healthy and experience greater longevity. However, these are just indications. I should add that I have been a pure vegetarian for 30 years, so my bias should be known. But so many factors can take centre stage when it comes to determining a person's health, longevity or disease risk. Physical Exercise, Stress, Anxiety, Worry, Happiness, Sense of Purpose, Self Image, Dental Health, pH Balance, Bowel Health and many other factors can lead to health catastrophe quickly.

A person with the best vegan diet available, but who has unhandled anxiety and self image problems can lead themselves to a illness and disease by creating a variety of degenerative conditions.

I always recommend a Vegan Diet, but there are many other factors that I would also advise. Please contact me if you have further questions.

JTx

Having been a vegetarian for over 30 years, my health has been excellent. The evidence that a vegetarian diet - or as close as you can get to it - is healthier than meat-based diets.

The longest living known tribes and nations had one thing in common - they eat/ate very little meat. These groups include the Hunzakut from the Hunza valley whose members lived to over 100 years with men siring children at ages of around 100 years. Similarly the Georgians and the traditional Okinawans (Japanese islanders).

Most importantly is the large epidemiological study called The China Study which investigated the relationship between health and longevity and the types of food which people from provinces around China ate. The bottom line that the study showed was - the fewer animal products eaten, the healthier the person.

This makes sense as all energy originates from the sun. We can eat plants, seeds, nuts, grains, etc. directly rather than process them through an animal and then kill and eat the animal. No animal foods contain antioxidants of any significance, yet these are abundant in the plant kingdom. Antioxidants stop DNA damage by free radicals, thus ensuring health and well-being over many years.

Other factors to consider include the diseases that animals are prone to. Most chickens and pigs are raised in intensive conditions. This is far removed from the traditional farm. Intensive agriculture ('factory farms') make ideal breeding grounds for bacteria and for viruses to mutate.

When you think of it, you are basically eating the corpse of an animal, yet that animal has eaten plant foods all its life. Also, the largest animals which have the most consistent energy are vegetarians - think horses, cattle, elephants, etc.

It is a myth that you need your protein to be derived from animal sources. All living things contain protein. You may need to be aware of your intake of vitamin B12, iron and iodine as modern farming practices have made a lot of our produce more sterile, reducing the bacteria which make vitamin B12, but this is very easy to do.

For a more detailed overview, please read here.

Despite not being vegetarian myself, there is a lot of research done in this area which does show that vegetarians live longer. Even though nutritionists seem to disagree on many topics, all agree that plant-eaters tend to live longer and healthier lives than do animal eaters. In every way, the brocolli-munchers tend to be healthier than the meat eaters:

• Vegetarians have a lower incidence of cancer, especially colon, stomach, mouth, oesophagus, lung, prostate, bladder, and breast cancers. The protection against intestinal cancers is probably due to the fibre in a plant-based diet. In fact, vegetarians have a lower incidence of nearly all intestinal diseases and discomforts, especially constipation and diverticulosis. The phytonutrients in plant foods, especially antioxidants, flavonoids, and carotenoids, may also contribute to protection against cancer.
  
• Plant food is better for your heart, since it is low in cholesterol and saturated fat, and high in fiber. Vegetarians have a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease, namely heart attacks and stroke. A study of 25,000 Seventh-Day Adventists showed that these vegetarians had one-third the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than a comparable meat-eating population. Another study showed that death from cardiovascular disease was fifty percent less in vegetarians. These statistics may be the result of more than just diet; vegetarians tend to have healthier overall lifestyles.
  
• Plant eaters are much less likely to get diabetes than animal eaters.
  
• Vegetarians tend to see better.
  
• An eye disease called macular degeneration, which is deterioration of the retina leading to blindness, occurs less frequently in vegetarians.
  
• Vegetarians tend to be leaner than meat eaters, even those who skin their chicken and trim the fat off their steak; and, in general, leaner persons tend to be healthier. Being lean does not mean being skinny. It means having a low percentage of body fat. Muscular weight-lifters tend to be lean, though no one would call them skinny. You don't have to “beef up” at the dinner table to make muscle. Even the dietary guidelines recommend eating more vegetables and grains and less meat, despite pressure from the politically-connected meat industry to promote meat.
  

There is is evidence that high levels of consumption of red meat (not chicken or fish) is a risk factor for colon cancer.

See: http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/Red-meat-and-colon-cancer.shtml

As others have pointed out there is an increasing amount of evidence to show the health benefits of vegetarian and plant-based diets.  This includes a reduced risk of many chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some types of cancer.  Vegetarians are also more likely to be a healthy weight. 

The benefits are likely due to a combination of eating more plant foods (such as wholegrains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds which all have health benefits) and eating less animal foods, particularly red meat. There is evidence that higher intakes of red meat and processed meats are linked with an increased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and bowel cancer. 

Many vegetarians also practice other healthy lifestyle behaviours (such as not smoking or drinking and exercising more) but even when this has been taken into account in studies, the health risks are still improved. Recent findings from the Adventist Health Study-2 found that vegetarian men live an average of 9.5 years longer and women 6.1 years longer than the non-vegetarians in the study.