Health Benefits

Another common reason that people switch from a meat eating diet to a non-meat eating diet is for health reasons. This isn't originally why I became vegetarian but it is the reason that I try to eat the least dairy as possible.

There is a common negative I found which I kinda touched on my previous post that sometimes vegetarians or vegans can be deficient in certain nutrients, but it was said that "Properly planned vegan diets are healthy, nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of many diseases," said Vandana Sheth, a registered dietitian and nutrition educator in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. 

If you want to get really in-depth mind blowing information about the health benefits of a meatless diet, watch the documentary "Forks Over Knifes"!!!!!

Here's a few statistics I came across:
-70% of Americans are dying from illnesses associated with their diets. According to Surgeon General C. Everett Koop

-40 million people are diagnosed with heart disease every year in the U.S. and 1.5 million a year have heart attacks. (Diehl, Western Diseases: Their Dietary Prevention and Reversibility)

-Cardiovascular disease kills 1 million Americans annually and is the leading cause of death in the United States.

-The Journal Of American Medical Association has reported that a vegetarian diet can prevent 97% of coronary obstructions

-According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a division of the CDC, the National Center for Health Statistics, 64 percent of adults and 15 percent of children aged 6 to 19 are overweight and are at risk of weight-related ailments including heart disease, stroke and diabetes

Adapting a vegetarian or vegan diet can lower 

these statistics by....

Lowering The Risk of
-Cancer
-Obesity
-Diabetes
-Cardiovascular Disease
-Heart Disease
-High Blood Pressure
-High cholestrol
-Gallstones
-Alzheimer's 
The reason for these health benefits are due to lower intakes of saturated fat, processed foods, meats, dairy, and the higher intakes of complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, minerals, and phytochemicals. My Source and This One

Here's also a few studies I found:

-According to Harvard Health Publications There's some evidence that vegetarians have a lower risk for cardiac events (such as a heart attack) and death from cardiac causes. In one of the largest studies — a combined analysis of data from five prospective studies involving more than 76,000 participants published several years ago — vegetarians were, on average, 25% less likely to die of heart disease.

-Data from the Adventist Health Study showed that non-vegetarians had a substantially increased risk of both colorectal and prostate cancer than did vegetarians.
-In 2002, the National Institutes of Health gave Loma Linda University School of Public Health a grant to continue the research on Seventh-day Adventists.  They found that vegetarians live longer than meat-eaters. The most recent data from the study indicates that Vegetarian Adventist men live to an average of 83.3 years – 9.5 years longer than other Californians. Vegetarian women live an average of 85.7 years which is 6.1 years longer than non-vegetarians.
They also found:
- Vegans are, on average, 30 pounds lighter than meat eaters.
- Vegans are also five units lighter on the BMI scale than meat-eaters.
- Vegetarians and vegans are also less insulin resistant than meat-eaters.
- Pesco-vegetarians and semi-vegetarians who limit animal products, but still eat meat once a week or so, have "intermediate protection" against lifestyle diseases.

Disclaimer: This is a personal blog, these are my personal opinions, I am not a doctor nor am I a specialist. These are things I've learned from books, documentaries, and online research.