Veganism is a lifestyle which excludes all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. While simply eliminating meat and dairy also has some health benefits, there’s nothing about veganism that necessarily equates to health.
It was therefore interesting to read about the EPIC Oxford series of studies. These are longitudinal studies of a sample of people in the UK which includes vegans and vegetarians. The latest reports made headlines all around the world when they communicated correlational findings that vegans and vegetarians experienced more bone fractures than did meat eaters. There have been similar reports about other differences where it is the vegans who have worse health indicators.
I won’t go into all the details that I’ve gleaned from all I’ve read about these studies but there is an important conclusion to draw about veganism and health. The UK vegans were primarily motivated to go vegan for animal rights reasons, according to Dr. Michael Greger, and did not by and large eat a healthy whole food plant-based diet. If you’re vegan, you’re not automatically healthy and spared all possible negative health outcomes. Simply being vegan but eating an incredibly unhealthy diet unsurprisingly won’t yield great health outcomes.
I’m reminded of the book I read decades ago when I first started long-distance running. It was a book by the multi-year Boston Marathon winner James Fixx. He believed that running was a cure all for everything. He used to eat a full package of Oreos before a race. He died at 52 of a heart attack due to his coronary arteries being damaged by arteriosclerosis, mostly due to his horrible diet.
I love that people adopt a vegan lifestyle to exclude all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. However, I would also love it if they would be kind to themselves too by eating a vegan whole food plant-based diet.