Does vegetarians live longer than meat eaters...?

Answer 1

True. Several studies show that vegetarians have longer life-spans than their meat-eating counterparts. One 20-year study, conducted by Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, Calif., found that vegetarians live, on average, a full 10 to 15 years longer than meat eaters.

Eating a plant-based diet helps reduce your risk for:

a. Hypertension and heart disease

b. Cancers (especially of the lung and colon)

c. Type 2 diabetes

d. Kidney disease

e. All of the above

Vegetarians have lower rates of all these diseases. Researchers reason that plant-based diets tend to be lower in fat and higher in fiber and other key disease-fighting antioxidants (including vitamins C, E and beta-carotene) than typical meat eaters’ diets. Some major findings:

• Eating a diet high in saturated fat, which is abundant in animal products, increases the threat of heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

• Excess dietary protein—much more common among non-vegetarians—is linked to kidney stones (as well as osteoporosis).

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/section_display.cfm?section_id=90

Answer 2

Many medical studies have found that vegetarians live on average 10 years longer than meat eaters.

Answer 3

It depends. If you are going to eat mostly if not exclusively organic veggies you should stand a good chance. It's pollutants, pesticides and chemicals that are more then likely going to hurt you more then anything and that goes for meat eaters as well as non meat eaters. They pack a lot of nasty stuff in animal feed that is in turn passed on to whomever eats the meat. I believe these chemicals, and pesticides add to your overall risk of cancer....
There have been some studies that say that vegetarians live longer then those that eat meat. This is more then likely due to artery clogging foods, lack of exercise, smoking etc. Vegans and vegetarians tend to take better care of what they put into their bodies and exercise more often. I have noticed in myself a reduction in allergy attacks since going vegan rather or not it's related I can't say for sure.

Answer 4

It depends because vegetarians can lead unhealthy lifestyles (alcohol, smoking, sweets, not wearing seatbelts, etc) but in most cases, if a vegetarian makes the right choices than yes, they would most likely live much longer than a meat eater.

Answer 5

Seventh Day Adventist do. They are lacto-ovo vegetarians and enjoy better overall health and longevity than the general population. There are a few things to consider, Seventh Day Adventists don't smoke or drink either, which skews the data a bit.

Answer 6

Yes take nature for example, vergetarians like elephants turtles do live longer than tiger lions and the likes

Answer 7

Vegetarians tend to be healthier, and it has recently been found that red meat is linked with breast cancer. So that would mean that not eating red meat can reduce the risks of breast cancer, so in a way lengthening life.

Answer 8

No, quite simply, for reasons to be explained later.

@ Jessigirl, the claim that meat rots in your stomach is true, that it makes you sick not. Meat rotting in your gut, or being broken down by bacteria, enzymes and acid, is a process commonly known as digestion. All food rots in the gut as that is how humans digest their food.
The claim that it makes you sick is also bogus, unless of course you hadn't eaten it for years and your body is unused to it; there are no adverse effects to the consumption of meat.

@ Ladyw900ldriver, that wikipedia article says

"A 1999 metastudy[37] compared six major studies from western countries. The study found that the mortality ratio was the lowest in fish eaters (0.82) followed by vegetarians (0.84) and occasional meat eaters (0.84) and which was then followed by regular meat eaters (1.0) and vegans (1.0)."

So basically it says that veggies live, on average, longer than meat eaters (but vegans don't). This is probably true, but it ignores that vegetarians on average smoke less, drink less, and generally live healthier lifestyles in most ways (basically, veggies are usual health conscious, non veggies much less so), obviously this influenced the results.
Wikipedia also mentions seventh day activists being veggie and living longer. This is a prime example of my above point, as they never drink, smoke, etc.
When those things are taken into account there is little, if any difference between veggies and meat eaters. The same facts mean that most other claims of meat eaters being more susceptible to diseases, for instance cancer or coronary diseases, are false.

Indeed, in the same article it says: "It is already long established in science that a number of lifestyle choices such as smoking, exercise and alcohol influence health and longevity. However, scientific studies so far fail to show that the decision to forgo meat contributes independently to people's life expectancy."

Also notice that vegans, who are less likely even than vegetarians to smoke, drink, etc, have as high a mortality rate as meat eaters, before the other variables (like meat eaters generally living less health conscious lives) are subtracted.

@KB M, that answer is so completely rubbish I dislike having to answer it at all. Cannibalism is the consumption of ones own species; are meat eating cats or dogs cannibals for eating meat? No, and neither are we.
The simple fact is that we are made to eat meat, although not necessarily by God (although if you read the bible God condemns vegetarianism; basically saying it's ungrateful and rejecting what he gave you, but hey).

Simple research into human biology reveals how we are meant to eat meat. For one thing, our body produces hydrochloric acid and meat splitting enzymes that herbivores don't produce and are solely used for the digestion of meat. There are adaptations to our teeth (not incisors, rather the size of the jaw), stomach and intestines which have made a human being very adept at meat digestion. There is nothing wrong with the way our body digests meat, and we are so adept at eating it no scientists are of any doubt we've evolved to eat it.

In contrast, there are many reasons we aren't naturally herbivores. We cannot naturally get all the nutrients we need without animal products naturally. Vitamin B12 cannot be got, even now, without animal products or supplements, and a lack of it can cause anaemia and impending death. 60% of vegans even now have some level of B12 deficiency, as opposed to no meat eaters, which says something about how well adapted we are to a vegan diet.
All other nutrients can be got naturally. That owes to that vegetables can now be sold all year round, even out of season, and can be flown into the country from all over the world. In bygone times people could only eat the relatively small range of plants that grew in their ecosystem, and only when they were in season. Thus many more nutrients would have been unavailable and still more unavailable for most of he year. Until very recently it would have been impossible for a vegan human to live naturally without dying very quickly.

Now, meat makes up for all these lost nutrients very nicely, and it really shows how we aren't naturally vegans, as until very recently it was impossible to live like that.



I hope my various arguments with previous answerers answers answers the question. (bit of a mouthful that)

Answer 9

Do vegetarians live longer than meat eaters?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism

Answer 10

A big YES. Eating meat is like being cannibals. God has not made animals to be eaten by humans.