document: Vegetarians may be at lower diabetes , heart risk By Kerry Grens NEW YORK -LRB- Reuters Health -RRB- - A new study finds that a meat-free diet seems to lower a person 's likelihood of having certain risk factors for diabetes or heart disease - and therefore may lower the risk of one day developing those illnesses . Researchers measured a suite of factors - blood sugar , blood fats , blood pressure , waist size , and body mass - that when elevated add up to '' `` metabolic syndrome , '' '' and found that vegetarians were lower than non-vegetarians on all counts except cholesterol . Having metabolic syndrome puts people at a greater risk of developing diabetes or heart disease in the future . In the study , 23 out of every 100 vegetarians were found to have at least three metabolic syndrome factors , compared with thirty-nine out of every 100 non-vegetarians and 37 out of every 100 semi-vegetarians . '' `` I was expecting there should be a difference , '' '' said Nico Rizzo of Loma Linda University , the lead researcher on the study . '' `` But I did n't expect that it would be that much . '' '' Rizzo and his colleagues analyzed the diet , health and lifestyles of more than 700 adults . Using questionnaires on eating habits , the researchers categorized participants as vegetarians -LRB- eating meat of any kind less than once a month -RRB- , semi-vegetarians -LRB- eating meat or poultry less than once a week -RRB- , and non-vegetarians . The researchers also measured sugar , fat and cholesterol in the subjects ' blood as well as blood pressure , waist size , and body mass index -LRB- BMI - a measurement of a person 's weight relative to height -RRB- . Vegetarians ' average BMI of 25.7 was four points lower than that of non-vegetarians , who , on average , had BMIs close to 30 . A BMI greater than 25 is considered overweight , and greater than 30 is considered obese . Semi-vegetarians fell in the middle , with a BMI and waist size smaller than non-vegetarians , but larger than vegetarians . The pattern held when the measurements were combined to determine the presence of metabolic syndrome . Rizzo told Reuters Health he is not sure what 's behind the differences . '' `` Is it primarily the meat intake , the plant food intake or a combination of both ? '' '' Rizzo said . It 's also possible that diet is not the cause ; the research showed only an association between food choices and health factors , not cause-and-effect . High BMI , for instance , one of the traits that make up the metabolic syndrome profile , itself contributes to high blood pressure , and indirectly , blood sugar , and thereby potentially raising a person 's risk of heart disease and diabetes . The current study , published in the journal Diabetes Care , also did not follow the subjects over the long term to see whether those who abstained from meat actually had lower rates of diabetes or heart disease . The data for this research , which was funded by the National Institutes of Health , came from the Adventist Health Study 2 , a long term study of Seventh Day Adventists . This religious group has considerably more vegetarians than the general population . In this study , 35 percent of the subjects did not eat meat , whereas only about five percent of all Americans are vegetarian . One of the differences Rizzo discovered between the groups was age . Vegetarians , on average , were 3 years older than the meat-eaters . '' `` Even though they 're older , they 're in better shape , '' '' Rizzo said . '' `` That 's something I found quite interesting . '' '' SOURCE : bit.ly / goHGBG Diabetes Care , online March 16 , 2011 .
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