For years, we’ve heard about the virtues of vegetarianism — namely that it reduces the risk of cancer and heart disease.
But a new, alarming finding calls the benefits of strict vegetarianism into question — and says a veggie diet could be hazardous to your health.
The warning emerged from the case of a French patient who lost most of his eyesight because of a strict vegan diet — defined as avoiding the consumption of all animal products, including cheese, milk and eggs — for 13 years.
Medical tests revealed the patient had suffered severe nutritional deficiencies, especially vitamin B12 — which is crucial for eyesight.
Although extreme, this case nevertheless is a sign that a strict vegetarian diet may not offer real health benefits. Just last year, research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) found that vegetarians and regular meat eaters had the same death rates for common forms of cancer such as breast, prostate, colorectal and lung.
New York nutritionists also stress that careless vegetarian diets can be downright dangerous.
“There are a lot of sketchy vegetarian diets, where people clearly don’t know what they are doing,” says Manhattan nutritionist Colette Nelson.
“I’ve seen people come in who have been living on salads and hamburger buns, and they are suffering definite malnutrition.”
The bottom line, experts say, is that everyone needs animal protein. The best type of diet is one that is plant-based but also includes dairy products and even fish.
“Fish has a certain type of fat known as an Omega-3 fatty acid, which is very difficult to find in other types of food but which appears to have large cardiovascular benefits,” explains Leslie Bonci, director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Dairy products are high in heart-healthy alpha linoleic acids — which also aren’t found in plant foods.
New mom Andrea Ross Boyle, 38, credits a lactovo-vegetarian diet — largely vegetarian but also including hearty amounts of dairy products and fish — as the chief reason for her healthy pregnancy.
Boyle has been a lactovo-vegetarian since 1982. She added fish to her diet several years ago when blood tests revealed she was anemic.
“I had the easiest pregnancy in the world. I never had morning sickness and was only in labor for three hours,” says the Dix Hills, L.I., resident.
Boyle made sure she bulked up on calcium-rich foods and protein throughout her pregnancy — both providing essential nutrients for her unborn baby.
“I read everything I could on proper diets to make sure I was eating correctly,” says Boyle, who now has a happy, healthy 10-week-old son.
“I’d drink two quarts of skim milk a day and eat lots of green leafy vegetables. Whatever my body craved — orange juice, fruit, nuts — I ate it, as long as it was healthy and good for the baby.”
But while Boyle has healthy vegetarian eating habits, other vegetarian moms-to-be may be unwittingly endangering their baby’s health.
Many vegetarians who don’t eat dairy products or fish get their protein by eating lots of soy products like soy beans, soy milk and tofu.
But research suggests it may be dangerous to consume large amounts of soy while pregnant.
A recent study from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles suggests that pregnant women who eat a diet high in soy may be increasing the risk of long-term developmental damage in their children. Soy contains compounds called phytoestrogens, which appear to mimic the effects of the female hormone estrogen.
When researchers analyzed amniotic fluid samples of 54 pregnant women, they found that 80 percent of fetuses were exposed to phytoestrogens at up to 180 times normal levels.
Even more frightening, when researchers then fed pregnant rats phytoestrogens, the compound had masculinizing effects on female offspring.
These findings echoed a previous study, published in the British Medical Journal, which found that mothers who ate a vegetarian diet during pregnancy incurred five times the risk of delivering a boy with hypospadias, a birth defect of the penis.
“We do know that synthetic estrogens [like ones found in birth-control pills] alter the development of the urogenital system in both male and female fetuses, so it’s possible that phytoestrogens could have the same effect,” acknowledges Dr. Donald Mattison, medical director of the March of Dimes.
Part of the problem, nutritionists believe, is that Americans, in their zeal to embrace the health benefits of soy, have been eating too much.
“In the United States, we tend to overdose on everything. Instead of small amounts of tofu, we eat a huge soy burger which has concentrated amounts of phytoestrogens,” Nelson says.
She advises pregnant women to ingest only a serving or two of soy a day, and also to avoid taking soy supplements, which generally have higher levels of isoflavones than occur naturally in food.
Research also shows men are susceptible to the side effects of vegetarianism. A study out of the University of Massachusetts found vegetarian males on low protein diets have lower testosterone levels, which can cause a decline in sexual function, muscle loss and bone damage.
“Vegetarianism can be incredibly healthy, but if you’re not eating enough from all the vegetarian food groups [breads, fruits, vegetables, legumes, dairy products] you’re really risking developing nutritional deficiencies,” said Samantha Heller, a nutritionist at New York University Medical Center.