Vegetarians might have higher risk of stroke than meat eaters

PanARMENIAN.Net - Non-meat diets have soared in popularity with many people ditching beef, pork and chicken in pursuit of health and environmental benefits and concerns about animal welfare.

However, a new study suggests that vegetarians and vegans may be at a higher risk of stroke than their meat-eating counterparts -- although those who don't eat meat have a lower chance of coronary heart disease, according to the new paper, published in the medical journal the BMJ on Wednesday, September 5, CNN reports.

"It does seem that the lower risk of coronary heart diseases does exceed the higher risk of stroke, if we look at the absolute numbers," said lead researcher Tammy Tong, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford.

This is the first study to look at the risk of stroke in vegetarians, said Tong. The research found that vegetarians and vegans had a 20% higher risk of stroke than meat-eaters, particularly hemorrhagic stroke -- caused when blood from an artery begins to bleed into the brain. This translates to 3 more cases of stroke per 1,000 people over 10 years.

The exact reasons for this higher risk found in vegetarians are not clear, said Tong. It is possible that this is due to "very low cholesterol levels or very low levels of some nutrients," she said.

"There is some evidence which suggests that very low cholesterol levels might be associated with a slightly higher risk of hemorrhagic stroke," she said. Similarly, other research points to deficiencies of some nutrients, like vitamin B12, may be linked to a higher risk of stroke, said Tong.

Still, some researchers were skeptical of the stroke finding.

The research shows that people who cut out meat from their diet are significantly healthier than meat eaters, Dr. Malcolm Finlay, consultant cardiologist at Barts Heart Centre, Queen Mary University of London, told the Science Media Center.

But he said the study put "too much weight on a complex statistical method to try and correct for the fact that the vegetarians were very much healthier than meat eaters."

"While this method can say the risk of stroke isn't as low as one might expect it to be in vegetarians considering how much healthier they are in general compared to meat-eaters, their overall risk of a major life-changing cardiovascular event happening still appears much lower," said Finlay, who was not involved in the study.