The interesting part is that the BMD difference in Caucasian vegetarians was reported as "lower than omnivores by between 8% and 10%", but that the difference in Asian vegetarians "was between 2% and 3%."
This was a meta-analysis of preexisting papers, so didn't involve any new data, and the abstract ends:
"the effect is unlikely to be of clinical significance."
What kills me is that an article could have that quote, and some omnivore would still use such a study to debunk vegetarianism.
While I can understand meat eaters having plenty of protein and good bones, vegetables can be full of nutrients too. I imagine if a vegan ate well and exercised, their health would be just as good as an omnivore.
While I can understand meat eaters having plenty of protein and good bones, vegetables can be full of nutrients too. I imagine if a vegan ate well and exercised, their health would be just as good as an omnivore.
Like i said, bone density is mainly due to stress put on the bones during exercise! Diet plays a minor part (unless it's a very unhealthy diet).
This is especially important for women!
According to Keeton, a research study by Ontario's McMaster University found that a year-long strength training program increased the spinal bone mass of postmenopausal women by nine percent. Furthermore, women who do not participate in strength training actually experience a decrease in bone density. In Prescription Alternatives, Professor Earl Mindell and Virginia Hopkins detail these findings: "In a recent study on bone density and exercise, older women who did high-intensity weight training two days per week for a year were able to increase their bone density by one percent, while a control group of women who did not exercise had a bone density decrease of 1.8 to 2.5 percent. The women who exercised also had improved muscle strength and better balance, while both decreased in the non-exercising group."
As bone density depends on the stress put on bones, could it be that because vegans are, on average, slimmer and lighter than omnivores, less stress is put on their bones and their bones are therefore less dense? So the difference in bone density between vegans and omnivores is nothing to do with either diet or exercise, but instead is related to weight differences between vegans and omnivores.
As bone density depends on the stress put on bones, could it be that because vegans are, on average, slimmer and lighter than omnivores, less stress is put on their bones and their bones are therefore less dense? So the difference in bone density between vegans and omnivores is nothing to do with either diet or exercise, but instead is related to weight differences between vegans and omnivores.
I don't think that body weight carried would be enough to influence bone density.
The studies i've seen seem to indicate actual weight training is needed to increase the density.
It seems , as far as i know, that lifting/pushing heavy weights causes thousands of microscopic fractures in the bone and the natural process of recalification renders the bone stronger and denser as these tiny fractures heal!
It's the same idea that helps dedicated martial artists accomplish amazing feats. They can spend years hitting their limbs repeatedly off solid objects thousands and thousands of times until they end up with radius and tibia bone almost as hard as steel, far harder and stronger than your average person, as the bone just builds up on itself again and again!
I'm sure I read previously on a website that a vegan diet can help prevent arthritus. I know a vegan diet can save many from diseases which are found in meat but does anybody know about any arthritical conditions and if a vegan diet can actually help prevent this illness.
The reason I ask is that I have hyperlaxed joints (double jointed) and I was told by a doctor that there may be a chance of getting arthritus in later life if bones rub/click regularly.
I have never read of any concrete evidence that eating a vegan diet and eating a balanced omnivore diet would give differing results for athritic conditions.
Arthritis is caused by the wear and tear on joints and cartilage which is not really reversible.
I have read in a few places that a vegan diet can help with arthritis (dairy is implicated in arthritis I think??) but can't remember any proper research, sorry.
Anecdotally, within 2 months of going vegan, my early-onset rheumatoid arthritis cleared up completely so I'm a believer! It used to be very bad and now I mostly forget I ever had problems unless directly reminded
I have heard about dietary changes possibly helping with rheumatoid arthritis, but that's an autoimmune condition so diet could affect inflammation etc in that.
I don't think I've heard anything very reliable-sounding about diet being implicated in osteoarthritis which is the kind your doc is probably talking about? Although if being vegan helps you keep your weight at a moderate level that will be good for not putting too much strain on your joints... There's a leaflet here: http://www.cks.nhs.uk/patient_inform...oarthritis_arc
The studies i've seen seem to indicate actual weight training is needed to increase the density.
It seems , as far as i know, that lifting/pushing heavy weights causes thousands of microscopic fractures in the bone and the natural process of recalification renders the bone stronger and denser as these tiny fractures heal!
Strong Women Strong Bones by Dr. Miriam Nelson, now on line, talks about this. I recommend the book and can tell you all that everything in the book is 100% applicable to men as well. I think the only reason she titled the book as she did is because hip fracture due to osteoporosis is somewhat more prevalent in women.
This is something I'm still working on myself, but it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to get enough calcium to support strong bones by following these steps (add more if you think of some!):
1. Eating good vegan sources like some greens, almonds, almond butter, sesame seeds, tahini, and black strap molasses. My black strap molasses have 100 mg per tablespoon. I frequently have 2 a day, which provides 20% of my calcium needs right there. I usually eat it with almond butter on toast, making that snack go even farther.
2. Limiting salt intake.
3. Limiting sugar intake?
4. Weight-bearing exercise: strength-training, etc.
5. Don't consume excessive protein.
I don't know, I've found sources claiming it's nearly impossible for anyone to get enough calcium (seems unlikely to me), to claims that it's only hard for vegans (possibility), to claims that it's easy for vegans (another possibility).
I still think most of us are probably better off than most omnivores, though, as they frequently overconsume salt, protein, and sugar. They may eat more calcium than we do, but their bodies lose more as well.
The improvement of rheumatoid arthritis was significantly correlated with the day-to-day fluctuation of subjective symptoms. In conclusion the rheumatoid patients subjectively benefited from the vegan diet rich in antioxidants, lactobacilli and fibre, and this was also seen in objective measures.
We have performed a number of studies including dietary interventions and cross-sectional studies on subjects consuming uncooked vegan food called living food (LF) and clarified the changes in several parameters related to health risk factors.
[...]
The rheumatoid arthritis patients eating the LF diet reported amelioration of their pain, swelling of joints and morning stiffness which all got worse after finishing LF diet. The composite indices of objective measures showed also improvement of the rheumatoid arthritis patients during the intervention. The fibromyalgic subjects eating LF lost weight compared to their omnivorous controls. The results on their joint stiffness and pain (visual analogue scale), on their quality of sleep, on health assessment questionnaire and on general health questionnaire all improved. It appears that the adoption of vegan diet exemplified by the living food leads to a lessening of several health risk factors to cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Rheumatoid patients subjectively benefited from the vegan diet which was also seen in serum parameters and fecal analyses.
We conclude that a vegan diet changes the faecal microbial flora in RA patients, and changes in the faecal flora are associated with improvement in RA activity.
The data provide evidence that dietary modification may be of clinical benefit for certain RA patients, and that this benefit may be related to a reduction in immunoreactivity to food antigens eliminated by the change in diet.
We tested the effects of an uncooked vegan diet, rich in lactobacilli, in rheumatoid patients randomized into diet and control groups. The intervention group experienced subjective relief of rheumatic symptoms during intervention. A return to an omnivorous diet aggravated symptoms.
[...]
The results showed that an uncooked vegan diet, rich in lactobacilli, decreased subjective symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. Large amounts of living lactobacilli consumed daily may also have positive effects on objective measures of rheumatoid arthritis.
In a controlled, single-blind trial we tested the effect of fasting for 7–10 d, then consuming an individually adjusted, gluten-free, vegan diet for 3.5 mo, and then consuming an individually adjusted lactovegetarian diet for 9 mo on patients with RA. For all clinical variables and most laboratory variables measured, the 27 patients in the fasting and vegetarian diet groups improved significantly compared with the 26 patients in the control group who followed their usual omnivorous diet throughout the study period. One year after the patients completed the trial, they were reexamined. Compared with baseline, the improvements measured were significantly greater in the vegetarians who previously benefited from the diet (diet responders) than in diet nonresponders and omnivores. The beneficial effect could not be explained by patients' psychologic characteristics, antibody activity against food antigens, or changes in concentrations of prostaglandin and leukotriene precursors. However, the fecal flora differed significantly between samples collected at time points at which there was substantial clinical improvement and time points at which there were no or only minor improvements. In summary, the results show that some patients with RA can benefit from a fasting period followed by a vegetarian diet. Thus, dietary treatment may be a valuable adjunct to the ordinary therapeutic armamentarium for RA.
No clear associations were observed between dietary protein, iron, or meat, including red meat, and risk for RA in this large prospective cohort of women.
This study showed that patients with moderate-to-severe RA, who switch to a very low-fat, vegan diet can experience significant reductions in RA symptoms.
Multi-country data for prevalence of RA for females from eight and fifteen countries were compared statistically with components of national dietary supply. Fat from meat and offal for the period 2 years before the prevalence data was found to have the highest statistical association with the prevalence of RA (r2 0·877, P<0·001 for eight countries). The statistical correlations for meat and offal were almost as high as those for their fat. Similar correlations were found for temporal changes in indices of effects of RA in several European countries between 1968 and 1978 as more meat was added to the national diets, although the correlations were higher for meat than for fat. It is hypothesized that meat and offal may be a major factor contributing to the inflammation in RA. In the present short review, the author examines some of the data that associate meat consumption with RA and the possible factors, e.g. fat, Fe and nitrite, which may contribute to the inflammation.
Results: Statistically significant correlations were found between Diet and three disease outcome
variables i.e. Acute-Phase Response, Pain Score, and Physical Function. Body Weight was
univariately only correlated to Acute-Phase Response but not significant when diet was taken into
account.
Conclusion: Body weight reduction did not significantly contribute to the improvement in
rheumatoid arthritis when eating lacto-vegetarian, vegan or Mediterranean diets.
CONCLUSIONS: Greater meat consumption is associated with a higher prevalence of degenerative arthritis and soft tissue disorders in both male and female subjects of this population, as is hormone replacement therapy in women.
A high level of red meat consumption may represent a novel risk factor for inflammatory arthritis or may act as a marker for a group of persons with an increased risk from other lifestyle causes.
Milk and dairy products have frequently been implicated in the aetiology of RA. O’Farrelly et al. (1989) demonstrated that fifty-three of ninety-three patients with RA had elevated circulating IgG antibodies to milk, wheat or both dietary proteins. Bovine serum albumin (BSA), a milk protein, contains an amino acid sequence homologous with human collagen type I, C1q, and sera from RA patients displayed reactivity to synthetic peptides containing the BSA residues responsible for the homology (PerezMaceda et al. 1991). Additionally, exogenous BSA peptides have been found to be bound to RA HLA-DR susceptibility alleles (Chicz et al. 1993). Case studies have shown that elimination of milk and dairy products from the diets of patients with RA improved symptoms, and the disease was markedly exacerbated on re-challenge (Parke & Hughes, 1981; Panush et al. 1986). No large-scale controlled trial testing the effect of dairy products on RA development and progression has been undertaken. In animal models of RA, disease symptoms are routinely induced in dogs (Ohashi et al. 1996), rats (Griffiths, 1992) and rabbits (Thomsen et al. 1985) by injecting the synovium with BSA. Further, milk drinking is known to induce rheumatoid-like joint lesions in rabbits drinking cows’ milk (Welsh et al. 1985).
Many types of inflammatory arthritis, including some forms of rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Crohn's associated arthritis, etc., are made much worse by molecules of food proteins that leak through the damaged wall of the intestine and into the bloodstream. These food protein fragments can lodge in joints, inciting inflammatory arthritis, as well as inflammations in other organs [e.g. lung (asthma), colon (colitis), skin (eczema/psoriasis) etc.]
The exact cause of rheumatoid arthritis is unknown. However, astute clinicians have long been aware that, for some patients, removing certain common foods such as dairy, wheat, corn, yeast, eggs and beef can bring blessed relief, while their return can cause a flare-up. This clinical impression has prompted a number of research studies, with impressive results. We now know that improvement following an elimination diet appears to be frequent and long-lasting. For example, of 100 patients who were treated over the span of a decade by eliminating the foods to which they reacted, one-third were still well and needed no other treatments for their illness after as much as 71/2 years of follow-up.1
From Vegetarian and Vegan Nutrition by George Eisman, M.A.,
M.Sc., R.D.:
Rheumatoid arthritis is more severe than osteoarthritis, is most common in the hands and feet, and is characterized by swelling of joints. Since this type of joint pain can be a
symptom of a food allergy, dietary change sometimes has a profound effect. Dairy products, the most common food allergen, are one likely candidate as a contributing causative factor.
From Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1985, 78:
In the case of the eight year old female subject, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis was a milk allergy. After avoiding dairy products, all pain was gone in three weeks.
From Don't Drink Your Milk, by Frank Oski, M.D:
In 1964, I learned of the experiences of Dr. William Deamer of San Francisco. He had pointed out the frequency of milk protein's casual relationship to musculoskeletal pain in
children and especially the so-called 'growing pains.' Since that time, I have had several children with what appeared to be early rheumatoid arthritis relieved and returned to good
health by little more than reassurance and careful dietary manipulation.
From No Milk, by Daniel Twogood, D.C.:
In systemic arthritis, like Rheumatoid, the cause is coursing through the blood, and it got there through the diet. When all of the joints are involved, the cause is not
physical, but chemical. It's usually casein. (Eighty percent of milk protein is casein). I once saw a 65 year old man, Bob, who complained of neck stiffness and headaches. His
hands were so stiff and sore. Bob lived to play golf. I instructed him to give up all milk and dairy products. Since giving up dairy products, he no longer experienced pain and
headaches, and his hands were also pain-free. Joy, a 42 year old woman noticed that her knees were pain-free after eliminating dairy products. Once, after drinking a glass of
milk, her knees swelled within 20 minutes.
From Fit for Life, by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond:
There is a colossal amount of information linking the consumption of milk to arthritis... and a multitude of other problems as documented by Hannah Allen, Alec Burton, Viktoras Kulvinskas, F. M. Pottenger, Herbert M. Shelton, and N.L. Walker, among others.
Certain foods trigger the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, and eliminating these foods sometimes causes even long-standing symptoms to improve or even remit entirely. It is important to avoid the problem foods completely, as even a small amount can cause symptoms. All dairy products should be avoided: skim or whole cow's milk, goat's milk, cheese, yogurt, cream, etc.
Re: Arthritis and vegan diets vs. omnivorous diets
Korn
I sprinkle a teaspoon of powdered ginger on my porridge every day to help with any inflammation of my joints from jogging. This was suggested in Neil Barnard's book "Foods that fight pain". Have you heard any reports on the effects of ginger?
Re: Arthritis and vegan diets vs. omnivorous diets
My boss drinks it, powdered Ginger with hot water, I think for the same reasons (he doesn't jog but he has joint problems). He's really serious about healthy stuff so I guess it works. Must admit his breath sometimes stinks though .
Background/Objectives:
The effect of vegan diet on bone loss has not been studied. The aim of this study was to examine the association between veganism and bone loss in postmenopausal women.Subjects/Methods:The study was designed as a prospective longitudinal investigation with 210 women, including 105 vegans and 105 omnivores. Femoral neck (FN) bone mineral density (BMD) was measured in 2008 and 2010 by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (Hologic QDR4500). The incidence of vertebral fracture was ascertained by X-ray report. Serum levels of C-terminal telopeptide of type I collagen (βCTX) and N-terminal propeptide of type I procollagen (PINP) were measured by Roche Elecsys assays. Serum concentration of 25-hydroxyvitamin D and parathyroid hormone were measured by electrochemiluminescence.
Results: Among the 210 women who initially participated in the study in 2008, 181 women had completed the study and 29 women were lost to follow-up. The rate of loss in FN BMD was -1.91±3.45%/year in omnivores and -0.86±3.81%/year (P=0.08) in vegans. Lower body weight, higher intakes of animal protein and lipid, and corticosteroid use were associated with greater rate of bone loss. The 2-year incidence of fracture was 5.7% (n=5/88) in vegans, which was not significantly different from omnivores (5.4%, n=6/93). There were no significant differences in βCTX and PINP between vegans and omnivores. The prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency in vegans was higher than in omnivores (73% versus 46%; P=0.0003).
Conclusions: Vegan diet did not have adverse effect on bone loss and fracture. Corticosteroid use and high intakes of animal protein and animal lipid were negatively associated with bone loss.
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition advance online publication, 3 August 2011; doi:10.1038/ejcn.2011.131.
I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.
I've been pushing myself quite a bit but it seems I've become very fatigued and my bones (especially around the legs) are starting to hurt a bit now, not just when training.
I was told it's possible that I may be lacking something like Vit D. Will just taking some help?
Last edited by Korn; Feb 26th, 2012 at 07:39 PM.
Reason: This was the first post in a similar thread
Re: Study showuing Vegans have weaker bones?
Prawnil
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Can a vegan diet prevent arthritis?
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