falenas108 comments on Group Rationality Diary, August 1-15 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: therufs 01 August 2013 08:38PM

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Comment author: falenas108 02 August 2013 10:18:19PM 1 point [-]

You should read the results of the first study you posted more carefully:

Cohort studies of vegetarians have shown a moderate reduction in mortality from IHD but little difference in other major causes of death or all-cause mortality in comparison with health-conscious non-vegetarians from the same population.

The other links don't contradict this study, and only look at deaths from specific causes, and not general mortality.

Comment author: vollmer 03 August 2013 06:21:37PM *  2 points [-]

You should read the results of the first study you posted more carefully:

Good point, thanks. My statement is not exactly wrong, but I should have written "healthier than average diets".

The other links don't contradict this study and only look at deaths from specific causes, and not general mortality.

That's quite wrong, examples:

Key 1999:

Total mortality and longevity also differed according to vegetarian status in California Seventh-day Adventists. After adjusting for age and sex, Seventh-day Adventist vegetarians had a relative risk for total mortality of 0.80 (95% CI: 0.74, 0.87) compared with those who ate any meat products. Using a multivariate, multiple-decrement-lifetable approach (19), we showed that vegetarian Seventh-day Adventist women live 2.52 y longer than their nonvegetarian (meat ≥ 1 time/wk) counterparts (P < 0.001), and a similar comparison in men showed a 3.21-y difference in longevity (P < 0.001).

McEvoy 2011 (review):

Overall, vegetarians tend to be slimmer, appear to be in better health, with reduced risk of chronic diseases and greater longevity when compared with omnivores

In that analysis, no significant differences were observed for stroke mortality or overall mortality between vegetarians and non-vegetarians(12).

(...) but no significant differences were observed for overall mortality rates between vegetarians and omnivores in these cohorts. One possible explanation may be that overall mortality was low in the cohort populations compared with the general Western population.

I deliberately only quoted very conservative and reliable sources, and although the effects are not really large, they are statistically significant and positive.

Comment author: falenas108 05 August 2013 01:15:01PM 1 point [-]

Sorry, I meant in regard to the "compared to health-conscious non vegetarians" part.

The fact that vegetarians tend to be more concerned about eating well is a huge factor that almost every "vegetarian diets are healthier!" study I've seen ignores. The first one you posted is the only one that tries to control for that, and they ended up with seeing no significant difference.

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