A vegetarian diet could add years to your life

Sources: JAMA Internal Medicine; Wall Street Journal; Time Magazine

A recent study followed more than 70,000 members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a group known for promoting vegetarianism, in order to analyze the relationship between diet type and death rate.

The study found that the vegetarians in the sample experienced 12% fewer deaths than meat eaters during the nearly six-year period.  The vegetarians were also 19% less likely than meat eaters to die from heart disease and were less likely to experience deaths related to diabetes and kidney failure.

These results, which had a stronger appearance in men than women, appeared to be independent of caloric intake. Cancer struck both groups in "roughly equal measure." Researchers hypothesize that the longevity related to vegetarian diets may be related to the consumption of high fiber nutrients that are also low in saturated fat.