A study by the American Heart Association discovered that switching to veganism can reduce the risk of early deaths in older women. It was conducted on over 100,000 post-menopausal women with an average age of 63 years between the years 1993 to 1998.

The team tracked their lives and health for 18 years. During this period, over 25000 women died due to cardiovascular conditions. Also, over 7500 women died of cancer, and nearly 2500 women died of dementia.

After questionnaires, they discovered that one-sixth of women's diet involves protein. They found the origin of protein and discovered that over two-thirds of it originated from animal products, like eggs and dairy products. The study also revealed that a few of these people were past smokers living a sedentary lifestyle with no physical activity.

Contrary to this, they also found that women who ate plant-based sources and consumed fewer calories in a day were healthy and less prone to diseases. For instance, replacing meat and consuming meat alternatives reduces the risk of heart diseases by 15-20%. Also, vegan foods are cheaper than meat products.

The author of Iowa University, Dr. Wei Bao, explains,

“Our findings support the need to consider dietary protein sources in future dietary guidelines. Current dietary guidelines mainly focus on the total amount of protein. Our findings show there may be different health influences associated with different types of protein foods. Such recommendations without considering specific protein sources may be simplistic and insufficient.”

People Who Eat Eggs Also Have Risk of Cardiovascular Disease

According to research, people who ate eggs have chances of dying from cardiovascular disease. Also, those who ate more eggs have fewer chances of dying from dementia.

Dr. Bao said,

“It is unclear in our study why eggs were associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular and cancer death. It might be related to the way people cook and eat eggs. Eggs can be boiled, scrambled, poached, baked, basted, fried, shirred, coddled or pickled or in combinations with other foods. In the United States, people usually eat eggs in the form of fried eggs and often with other foods such as bacon.”

He added,

“Although we have carefully accounted for many potential confounding factors in the analysis, it is still difficult to completely tease out whether eggs, other foods usually consumed with eggs, or even non-dietary factors related to egg consumption, may lead to the increased risk of cardiovascular and cancer death.”

Specific sources of animal protein can be linked with a higher risk of death, cancer, and other severe diseases. Penny Kris-Etherton, a professor of nutrition at Penn State University, said,

“It's not clear why animal proteins increase the risk of death from dementia. We know there are relationships between higher blood pressure and dementia and also higher blood glucose levels and dementia. We're a long way away from really understanding dementia and the causes of it, other than we know there are these associations with blood pressure and high glucose levels.”

Final Words

Vegan foods offer an adequate amount of vitamins and minerals required by the body. Be it older or an adult one, those consuming a vegan diet fall less ill in comparison to those consuming meat and animal products.

Whether you have crossed your 30s or are in your 50s, it is never too late to start a healthy vegan diet. Here’s how you can become vegan in 2021.