Research
Macro partitioning
Vegan diets are associated with lower carotid artery intima-media thickness (CIMT), an intermediate marker of atherosclerosis, compared to Western diets.
If you are concerned about early artery thickening, a vegan diet may help reduce carotid artery intima-media thickness compared to a standard Western diet. However, this is an intermediate marker and does not necessarily translate to fewer heart attacks or strokes.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Common CIMT... was reported to be significantly lower in the low-calorie, low-protein, vegan diet group compared to the Western diet group (0.56 ± 0.1 mm versus 0.74 ± 0.1 mm, respectively; P < 0.001)
Why this rating
Based on one cross-sectional study and one small RCT; evidence quality is limited by study design and sample size.
Source
A Systematic Review of the Association Between Vegan Diets and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease
Jeenan Kaiser et al. · Journal of Nutrition · 2021
DOI 10.1093/jn/nxab037
systematic_review · n=73852Cited 36×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Adherence to a vegan diet does not significantly alter the risk of primary cardiovascular disease events (including coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction, or stroke) compared to non-vegan diets, although it may lower intermediate markers like carotid artery intima-media thickness.Limited
- Vegan diets may be associated with a higher risk of ischemic stroke compared to non-vegan diets, although the finding was not statistically significant.Limited
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