Vegans may be significantly more likely to develop bone fractures than meat-eaters, a new study revealed.
The large, longitudinal study published Sunday in the journal BMC Medicine, revealed that there were 19.4 more cases of fractures in vegans and 4.1 more cases in vegetarians for every 1,000 people over 10 years.
This is the first comprehensive study and the largest study to date to look at the risks of both total fractures (fractures occurring anywhere in the body) and fractures at different sites in people of different habitual dietary habits, the studys lead author, Tammy Tong, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford, said in an email to CNN.
Researchers recruited nearly 55,000 healthy adults from the UK meat eaters, pescatarians, vegetarians and vegans to answer a questionnaire on diet, socio-demographic characteristics, lifestyle, and medical history between 1993 and 2001, and followed up with them in 2010.
By 2016, the study authors found 3,941 total fractures among the participants.
On average, vegans with lower calcium and protein intakes saw a 43 percent higher risk of fractures anywhere on their bodies, and specifically in the hips, legs and vertebrae.
Vegetarians and pescatarians had a higher risk of hip fractures than meat eaters but when researchers factored in body mass index and adequate consumption of calcium and protein, that risk was lessened.
But the heightened risk still existed for vegans, even with those factors taken into account.
Meat eating master race! ---
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