Chris Blattman

Chris Blattman

Twitter Facebook-f Envelope Rss
Search
Close this search box.

Vegetarians are more cancerous, allergic, and insane?

Our results revealed that a vegetarian diet is related to a lower BMI and less frequent alcohol consumption. Moreover, our results showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with poorer health (higher incidences of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders), a higher need for health care, and poorer quality of life.

A new study in PLOS One. It matches 1320 Austrians of different diets according to their age, sex, and socioeconomic status. This is a rather crappy matching strategy, just waiting for an irate vegetarian economist to tear it apart. I suspect the true results are quite different. Nonetheless, food for thought. [Insert groan here]

 

26 Responses

  2. I agree that very little (or false) conclusions can be drawn from this cross-sectional study. In a meat loving country such as Austria, one could stipulate that a large number of individuals in the data have adopted a vegetarian diet to counter the negative health effects of a previous meat diet. On top of that the study only looks at a vegetarian diet which is probably an ovo-lacto diet, i.e. people who still consume animal protein. Many people that move from a meat to a non meat diet will actually overconsume diary and eggs, so their animal protein (and fat) intake will actually increase…. So what was it again this study is trying to tell us?

    A recent study that looks at a plant-based diet actually comes up with entirely different results: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/04/animal-protein-diets-smoking-meat-eggs-dairy

  3. Chris: Thanks for your response.

    I guess my concern is that the authors are not transparent about the glaring identification issue here. They don’t mention the correlation-causation problem until the last paragraph before the conclusion. And they make a policy recommendation assuming vegetarian diets lead to low health outcomes: “Therefore, a continued strong public health program for Austria is required in order to reduce the health risk due to nutritional factors.” This seems deliberately deceptive.

    And no, we don’t play favorites with the results we like. We use standards of good science to help us understand the effects of one thing on another so that we don’t let angry vegans decide whether a vegetarian diet is healthy or not.

  4. Angry vegan: This is a dangerously anti-scientific view–the idea that discussion of scientific results in lead journals is somehow problematic. The article has a research design that attempts to go beyond correlations. Your strongest argument would be to criticize the matching strategy on its specific merits, as I briefly did. Highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of leading research is the purpose of this blog. We don’t play favorites with the results we like.

  5. We learn nothing from this study. Vegetarian diets are correlated with worse health outcomes, but we have no idea which way the causality runs. There is no information here.

    However, posting this study on your blog will have an impact as some people will think this study suggests vegetarian diets cause bad outcomes. This is irresponsible science, and irresponsible blogging.

  6. “…no statements
    can be made whether the poorer health in vegetarians in our study
    is caused by their dietary habit or if they consume this form of diet
    due to their poorer health status.”

    Next!

  7. I feel like studies on eating and health are the equivalent of macro studies in economics. You can find any sample to prove what your priors are.

Why We Fight - Book Cover
Learn More
Subscribe to Blog

Recent Posts