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Vegetarian diet weakens
bones: Australian research
SYDNEY— People who live on vegetarian diets have slightly weaker
bones than their meat-eating counterparts, Australian researchers said
yesterday. A joint Australian-Vietnamese study of links between the
bones and diet of more than 2,700 people found that vegetarians had
bones five per cent less dense than meat-eaters, said lead researcher
Tuan Nguyen.
The issue was most pronounced in vegans, who excluded all animal
products from their diet and whose bones were six per cent weaker,
Nguyen said. There was “practically no difference” between the bones of
meat-eaters and ovolactovegetarians, who excluded meat and seafood but
ate eggs and dairy products, he said.
“The results suggest that vegetarian diets, particularly vegan diets,
are associated with lower bone mineral density,” Nguyen wrote in the
study, which was published yesterday in the American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition. “But the magnitude of the association is clinically
insignificant,” he added.
Nguyen, who is from Sydney's Garvan Institute for Medical Research and
collaborated on the project with the Pham Ngoc Thach University of
Medicine in Ho Chi Minh City, said the question of whether the lower
density bones translated to increased fracture risk was yet to be
answered. “Given the rising number of vegetarians, roughly five percent
(of people) in western countries, and the widespread incidence of
osteoporosis, the issue is worth resolving,” he said. —AFP |
