Lower Heart Disease and Diabetes Risks with Vegetarian Diets

Vegetarians have significantly lower blood pressure, waist circumference, body mass index, blood sugar, and triglycerides, compared with nonvegetarians, according to a recent study published in Diabetes Care. In 1,011 randomly selected Adventist Health Study 2 participants, metabolic syndrome, a cluster of disease risk factors associated with heart disease and diabetes, was lowest among vegetarians (25.2 percent), followed by semi-vegetarians (37.6 percent), and highest among nonvegetarians (39.7 percent).