Mixed
Vegetarian and vegan diets are associated with a significantly lower risk of ischaemic heart disease compared to meat-eating diets, primarily mediated by lower body mass index, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels.
Adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet is associated with a lower risk of heart disease compared to eating meat. This benefit appears to be linked to lower body weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels often found in vegetarians. You do not need to eliminate all animal products to see benefits; fish eaters also showed reduced risk.
Fish eaters (hazard ratio 0.87, 95% confidence interval 0.77 to 0.99) and vegetarians (0.78, 0.70 to 0.87) had lower rates of ischaemic heart disease than meat eaters... The associations for ischaemic heart disease were partly attenuated after adjustment for self reported high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and body mass index
Why this rating
Large prospective cohort (n=48,188), long follow-up (18 years), adjusted for multiple confounders, but observational design limits causal inference.
Source
Risks of ischaemic heart disease and stroke in meat eaters, fish eaters, and vegetarians over 18 years of follow-up: results from the prospective EPIC-Oxford study
Tammy Y. N. Tong et al. · BMJ · 2019
DOI 10.1136/bmj.l4897
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