A carefully planned vegetarian or vegan diet can help ward off diseases, according to the American Dietetic Association.
We’ve been seeing quite a few studies about the benefits of vegetarian diets — in fact, British researchers recently reported that vegetarians are 12 percent less likely to develop cancer than meat eaters. So it’s not surprising that the recently updated position statement from the American Dietetic Association on vegetarian diets says that well-planned vegetarian and vegan diets are healthful and can help to prevent and treat chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity.
Positions, consisting of a statement and support paper based on scientific data, are the ADA’s stance on issues that affect public nutrition, updated every three to five years. The most significant change to the position update, however, is this addition to the statement: “Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the lifecycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence, and for athletes.”
“While this information has been included in the [supporting] position paper in the past, it has never before been in the position statement,” says position co-author Reed Mangels, Ph.D., R.D., nutrition adviser at the Vegetarian Resource Group. The new position paper — co-written by Winston Craig, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D., professor and chair of the department of nutrition and wellness at Andrews University — includes more details about the health advantages of vegetarian diets, including lower blood cholesterol and blood pressure and decreased risk for heart disease and cancer.
We’re interested to see if the benefits of vegetarian diets receive more attention in light of this updated ADA position — especially with the increasing obesity epidemic among adults and children. Do you think more people will turn to vegetarian diets to ward off disease?
Photo credit: Peter Buckingham
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3 Reader Comments:
[...] mainstream, from the popularity of Skinny Bitch (Running Press, 2005) and its successors, to the American Dietetic Association’s updated position last year blessing vegan diets as healthful and helpful in preventing and treating chronic [...]
[...] mainstream, from the popularity of Skinny Bitch (Running Press, 2005) and its successors, to the American Dietetic Association’s updated position last year blessing vegan diets as healthful and helpful in preventing and treating chronic [...]
[...] mainstream, from the popularity of Skinny Bitch (Running Press, 2005) and its successors, to the American Dietetic Association’s updated position last year blessing vegan diets as healthful and helpful in preventing and treating chronic [...]