Every day more people adopt a diet vegetarian with the aim of improving your health. But stop eating meat and fish can be harmful in later life, particularly in terms of dementia risk, a new US study shows.
Scientists of the Loma Linda University Health in California have found that most vegetarian diets are associated with a lower risk of disease in middle-aged people. However, the opposite happens with people over 65 years of age.
Researchers have observed slightly higher risks among very elderly vegetarians from suffering from diseases such as stroke, dementia and Parkinson’s disease.
However, when fish is added to the diet, this risk is significantly reduced and is associated with a lower risk of death.
The study, published in August in the American Journal of Clinical Nutritionused dietary data from 88,000 people between 30 and 85 years old from Canada and the United States, including 12,500 deaths. Participants were recruited between 2002 and 2007 and followed up in 2015.
The participants were divided into five categories according to their diets: non-vegetarians, semi-vegetarians, pescetarians (those who ate fish), lacto-ovo-vegetarians (those who ate dairy products and eggs) and vegans.
Overall, those who ate a vegetarian diet had about a 12% lower risk of this disease compared to those who ate meat. But people who ate a vegetarian diet but also ate fish (pescetarians) they had an 18% lower risk of death.
The researchers also looked at the benefits of adding dairy products and eggs to a vegetarian diet and found that this reduced the risk of death by a further 15%.
Vegans, who do not eat any animal products, only had a 3% lower risk of death. However, the study found that although the vegetarian diet offered protection against the risk of death for middle-aged people, those in their 80s did not see as much benefit.
The principal investigator of the study, Professor Gary Fraserexplained that there is a higher risk of neurological diseases among vegetarians over 80 years of age.
This could be because a vegetarian diet that does not include fish could lack vital nutrients, such as fatty acidswhich can help the brain.
It is believed that the Mediterranean diet, which also includes the consumption of a variety of fruits and vegetables, as well as oily fish, such as salmon and mackerel, It is beneficial because it has a high antioxidant content.
Add oily fish to a diet, which It is rich in omega-3could also help brain health. This is because omega-3, which is also a type of fat found in cell membranes, is important for the brain from development in the womb to adulthood.
It is believed that omega-3 can help reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, both of which contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
