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View Full Version : "Vegetarians" on the news (5/1/05)



~*Blue*~
May 1st, 2005, 04:06 PM
is anybody watching this? the news was on this morning and they were talking about how studies have shown vegetarians do NOT live longer than meat eater's (i thought they lived about 7 years longer but the places i got that info from probably had a bias) and that they have an increase in degenerative brain disease. they did say that they have less cancers, etc but that it's probably more due to vegetarians exercising more and taking better care of themselves. i didn't catch the last part of the program but i was wondering if anybody saw it this morning and if they can tell me WHY there is an increase in degenerative brain disease?

Evilfluffbunny
May 1st, 2005, 04:41 PM
I didn't see this (I'm in the UK), but it seems to be going against all the findings from other studies that have been done, so I don't understand it. I mean, I've read the findings not only on vegetarian websites, but from ordinary nutritional/medical publications too - how can they suddenly come up with completely opposite results? :confused:

Also, if veggies and vegans get the same (if not, more) nutrients that meat-eaters do, then why would there be any negative effects?

I wonder who has carried out these studies, who's funding them and who has been studied...... Maybe the 'vegetarians' are people who've been eating an unbalanced diet for many years, or perhaps the study is no better than that ridiculous one recently about the so-called vegan children?

I don't know, it just seems a bit odd to me. :(

~*Blue*~
May 1st, 2005, 05:38 PM
yea...i was concerned about the degenerative brain diseases...what caused it, how it can be prevented, etc. it was on cnn or maybe fox news? i'm trying to look on the website for it---it was a follow up to a story about if ginger (?) pills were beneficial or not.

kriz
May 1st, 2005, 07:46 PM
I used to be a vegetarian who didn't know what the heck I was doing; I didn't know the importance of B12, iron, omega -3's etc., and if I had continued on that unhealthy path, I'm sure I would end up with some type of disease directly linked to my diet. Lets face it, there are many very unhealthy unknowlegable veggies out there. I've met a few who say they want to try vegetarianism, and sometimes it really horrifies me, because many don't do ANY research on the subject. They only cut the meat without substituting with legumes, or any other high protein product and think that's vegetarian living. Overall their diet may only consist of things like pasta, bread, steamed vegetables, and fruit without any supplementation. Imagine living like that for years. Scary. It actually took me many years to realize that I was not a veggie but a junkie.

So I can't say that studies like that really surprise me. Hopefully there will be more information available (everywhere!) in the future about vegetarian and vegan nutrition. And I think it starts with a society that is more vegetarian friendly and accommondating. I see things are changing already with all the accessible information on the net. I personally have learned tons from this forum!

Vegetarians do not have to end up with degenerative brain diseases or heart attacks. There are definetely a few simple steps one can do to avoid that. :)

Seaside
May 1st, 2005, 08:40 PM
If anyone is really concerned about degenerative brain conditions, the book "Excitotoxins, The Taste that Kills" has some good ideas about possible causes. It discusses the role that MSG, or monosodium glutatmate, (it has many names; its manufacturers keep trying to change it whenever consumers catch on to the old ones, which to me is criminal :mad: ), aspartame, and other food additives have in many different diseases of the brain.

I wouldn't give this news item a second thought. It must be funded by the meat and dairy lobbies, and if it doesn't mention whether processed foods were eliminated, or whether cooking utensils were made of aluminum (a factor in Alzheimer's), it has not covered all of the possible dietary sources of brain damaging chemicals. The brain is #1 on the body's list of priorities, and will rob tissues of what it needs if it doesn't get them from the diet. In other words, if a vegetarian diet were insufficient to keep the brain nourished, I think the body itself would waste before brain damage were to occur. However, if a vegetarian or any other diet were full of brain poisoning additives, the brain would show damage from these chemicals. I'm not a doctor or anything, but it doesn't make sense to me that the brain would be damaged by a lack of something unecessary (as we know meat is!) as much as it would be damaged by a presence of something bad. I would definitely ask a lot more questions about this "study" before I believed it, and it wouldn't matter to me if it were true, anyway. The possibility of brain disease is not enough to make me start eating animal products again! ;)

DoveInGreyClothing
May 2nd, 2005, 12:50 AM
I tried to find the article on msn news, then ran a search engine to no avail. Could someone please post a link?

btw, I tend to agree with what seaside said on the subject.