Research
Macro partitioning
Vegetarian and vegan diets are associated with significantly lower levels of BMI, total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, and blood glucose compared to omnivorous diets.
Switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet is linked to lower body weight, better cholesterol levels, and lower blood sugar. These benefits are seen in many observational studies.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
The overall analysis among cross-sectional studies reported significant reduced levels of body mass index, total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, and glucose levels in vegetarians and vegans versus omnivores.
Why this rating
Large number of cross-sectional studies (86 for vegetarians), but high risk of bias and heterogeneity.
Source
Vegetarian, vegan diets and multiple health outcomes: A systematic review with meta-analysis of observational studies
Monica Dinu et al. · Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition · 2016
DOI 10.1080/10408398.2016.1138447
Meta-analysis · 96 studiesCited 958×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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- Adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet is associated with a significantly reduced risk of ischemic heart disease incidence and mortality compared to an omnivorous diet.Good
- Vegetarian and vegan diets are associated with a significantly reduced incidence of total cancer compared to omnivorous diets.Moderate
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