Research

Hormonal

Adopting a flexitarian or semi-vegetarian diet (SVD) is associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and improved metabolic health markers (glucose, insulin, blood pressure) compared to non-vegetarian diets.

To lower your risk of type 2 diabetes and improve metabolic health, consider a flexitarian diet. This involves eating meat occasionally (e.g., less than once a week) or excluding red meat while eating poultry and fish. Studies show this pattern is associated with lower diabetes prevalence and better blood pressure control compared to standard non-vegetarian diets.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Other research using data from India’s third National Family Health Survey 2005–2006 (n = 156,317) from adults aged 20–49 years found that the consumption of lacto-, lacto-ovo-, and SVDs were associated with a reduced likelihood of diabetes compared with NV diets... With regard to blood pressure, research involving 26 postmenopausal women from convents found that omnivores had significantly higher systolic and diastolic pressures than the SVs.
Emma Derbyshire · Frontiers in Nutrition · 2017

Why this rating

Based on large observational studies and some RCTs, though definitions of SVD vary.

Source

Flexitarian Diets and Health: A Review of the Evidence-Based Literature

Emma Derbyshire · Frontiers in Nutrition · 2017

DOI 10.3389/fnut.2016.00055

narrative_reviewCited 259×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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