Photo: George Chernilevsky via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped. This adapted image is also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Vegetarian diets are linked to a 21% lower risk of ischaemic heart disease and a 15% lower risk of cardiovascular disease compared with non-vegetarian diets, according to a new analysis of studies covering more than 844,000 people. The researchers judged the link to be probably causal.
Jarle Sæby Dybvik, Professor Dagfinn Aune and colleagues at the University of Oslo pooled 13 prospective cohort studies with 844,175 participants and more than 115,000 cases of cardiovascular disease. Their systematic review and meta-analysis is published in the European Journal of Nutrition.
Vegans had an 18% lower risk of ischaemic heart disease, a borderline result from fewer studies. No clear difference was found for stroke, which the authors say needs more research. Using World Cancer Research Fund criteria, they rated the evidence for heart disease and cardiovascular disease as probably causal.
These findings are consistent with existing guidelines recommending plant-based dietary patterns for CVD prevention but suggest more emphasis may be put on vegetarian diets.
That is how the authors conclude in the full paper.
It confirms the 2019 meta-analysis linking vegetarian diets to 22% lower risk of dying from heart disease and last year's finding that plant-based diets are linked to 16% lower cardiovascular risk.
More plants, healthier hearts: the evidence just keeps growing.