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2009-07-03 07:56:20
Thu Jul 2, 6:31 am ET
SYDNEY (AFP) People who live on vegetarian diets have slightly weaker bones
than their meat-eating counterparts, Australian researchers said Thursday.
A joint Australian-Vietnamese study of links between the bones and diet of more
than 2,700 people found that vegetarians had bones five percent less dense than
meat-eaters, said lead researcher Tuan Nguyen.
The issue was most pronounced in vegans, who excluded all animal products from
their diet and whose bones were six percent weaker, Nguyen said.
There was "practically no difference" between the bones of meat-eaters and
ovolactovegetarians, who excluded meat and seafood but ate eggs and dairy
products, he said.
"The results suggest that vegetarian diets, particularly vegan diets, are
associated with lower bone mineral density," Nguyen wrote in the study, which
was published Thursday in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
"But the magnitude of the association is clinically insignificant," he added.
Nguyen, who is from Sydney's Garvan Institute for Medical Research and
collaborated on the project with the Pham Ngoc Thach University of Medicine in
Ho Chi Minh City, said the question of whether the lower density bones
translated to increased fracture risk was yet to be answered.
"Given the rising number of vegetarians, roughly five percent (of people) in
western countries, and the widespread incidence of osteoporosis, the issue is
worth resolving," he said.