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Vegans can be much more likely to develop bone fractures than meat eaters, a new study has found.
The large longitudinal study published Sunday in the journal BMC Medicine found that there were 19.4 more cases of fractures in vegans and 4.1 more cases in vegetarians per 1,000 people over 10 years.
“This is the first in-depth study and the largest study to date to examine the risks of total fractures (fractures occurring anywhere in the body) and fractures at different sites in people with eating habits. different, ”the study’s lead author Tammy Tong, a nutritional epidemiologist in the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford, said in an email to CNN.
The researchers recruited nearly 55,000 healthy adults in the UK – meat eaters, pescatariens, vegetarians and vegans – to answer a questionnaire on diet, demographics, lifestyle and medical history from 1993 and 2001, and followed them in 2010.
In 2016, the study authors found 3,941 total fractures among the participants.
On average, vegans with lower intakes of calcium and protein saw a 43% higher risk of fractures anywhere on their body, and especially in the hips, legs, and vertebrae.
Vegetarians and pescatariens had a higher risk of hip fractures than meat eaters – but when the researchers took into account body mass index and adequate consumption of calcium and protein, this risk has been reduced .
But the increased risk still existed for vegans, even with these factors taken into account.
“The results of the study support a growing body of research on bone health with the intake of protein and calcium and BMI (body mass index),” Lauri Wright, nutritionist dietitian and director of department Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of North Florida, which was not part of the new study, told CNN. “Protein and calcium are the two main building blocks of bones.”
Katherine Tucker, professor of nutritional epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts, who also was not involved in the study, told CNN that vegans and vegetarians “ need to be very careful about getting the nutrients that are in them. are missing if they do not include them. products’ rich in them.
However, most of the study participants were white Europeans and women – meaning the findings “cannot be generalized to … other populations and more study is needed,” according to Tucker.
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