Petermann-Rocha F, Parra-Soto S, Gray S, Anderson J, Welsh P, Gill J, Sattar N, Ho F.K, Celis-Morales C and Pell J.P. Vegetarians, fish, poultry, and meat-eaters: who has higher risk of cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality? A prospective study from UK Biobank. European Heart Journal. 2021.
Summary:
- This prospective analysis, including a total of 422,791 participants, examined the incidence and mortality risk for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) among people with different types of diets using data from UK Biobank
- Using data from a FFQ, four types of diets were derived, including vegetarians, fish eaters, fish and poultry eaters, and meat-eaters.
- They found that after a follow-up of 8.5 years, fish eaters, compared with meat-eaters, had lower risks of incident CVD, ischaemic heart disease, myocardial infarction, stroke and heart failure.
Discussion:
- The UK Biobank is not representative of the UK population in terms of lifestyle; therefore, the summary statistics should not be generalizable to the general population.
- Due to the insufficient statistical power, they were unable to study vegan diets, which according to the Vegan Society has increased in prevalence during the last years.
Question:
- Should we be encouraging a specific type of diet for CVD risk reduction?
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