Very good analysis. Another factor is that vegetarians and vegans are usually more careful about the quality of their food (not always), and consumption of corn byproducts and pesticide residues also play a role in overall health and susceptibility to disease. We would assume that the omnivores would be exposed to more of those “added” risks
Thanks! All of the things you mentioned may be a factor as well, although the vegetarian group seems was labeled as consuming more vegetable oils. The study took place in Brazil and so agricultural differences relative to the US should be considered. This sort of begs the question of whether more fruits and vegetables, irrespective of their sources, is better than fewer plant products overall. This sort of serves as another confounder for the omnivore group.
Yep, that's a huge one. By definition veggie-heads are very careful what they eat, which makes them extra health-conscious. It would be bizarre if they had the same or equal outcomes to the general public.
I am a Vegan and I do not believe this study at all. I have had C19 and being Vegan didn’t prevent me from getting it. Likely, the Vegans were in general healthier than the Omnivore’s in the study. The SAD diet is just full of ultra processed foods sprayed with pesticides. Eat Whole Foods. Organic if you can afford it or pick the thing you eat the most of and buy organic of that item. The FDA has shown itself to be captured by big corporations for money, they are not looking for health problems from our food or pharmaceuticals. Buyer beware
That's essentially the point of pointing out this study. It can't tells us anything of actual risk reduction, but merely just tells us that the vegetarian group had lower incidences of COVID. Why is left as an unanswered question. In contrast, several articles reporting on this study use the headline similar to what I posted but stating that the study does say that eating vegetarian will reduce your risk of COVID sort of like the headline below:
I've often delved into the carnivore diet, maintaining it for weeks or months at a time; zero veggies, zero fiber, just meat.
I do fine like that, my weight goes down, I feel good, lots of energy and zero digestive issues.
The only reason I slip off the wagon is how everyone else eats other stuff and it's hard to be the party-pooper who turns his nose up at everything which isn't meat. And sourdough toast with lots of butter and fried egg on top is to die for...
I've generally held the opinion that any highly restrictive diet, whether carnivore or veganism is likely to be beneficial mainly due to the fact that these are exclusionary. I'm not sure if you've noticed but strangely there have been several YouTube videos from keto/carnivore people talking about how the trend seems to be going downward for these diets. I never looked into it for myself but it made for an interesting thought.
I wonder about that meat only diet for an extended period of time. Do you take vitamins too? It takes more energy for the body to process meat and I'm not sure how that is on the body long-term. But I've heard in in the short term people feel great.
As I commented to Bigs I'd be curious if a meat-only diet is effective due to the fact that it's highly exclusionary. I thought about some of this when Mikhaila Peterson came out about her extremely restrictive diet (I believe it was essentially lamb and salt that she ate). She also talked about growing up with serious autoimmune issues which were not found until years later and after several surgeries for her weakened bones. She also appeared to have taken a ton of antibiotics when younger as well, so based on these factors I'm curious if her restrictive diet is a solution to an otherwise overexaggerated response from her body.
Observational study of one : I have an immunodeficiency (dysgammaglobulinemia) and was mostly carnivore when Delta hit. My tonsils and adenoids, were taken out at the age of four. Years of abs as a child too. Carnivore was appealing having followed Dr Mabry's story of how he beat diabetes and obesity, and hearing from others like Mikhaila, how that turned her around, and her father as well.
Total covid duration was 11 days. Worst symptom, the throat of knives. Many of my normie friends who rolled their eyes at my way of eating, fared a whole lot worse, and worst of all were some vegan friends, but there is vegan and vegan, and some know how to do it properly and others just eat carbs.
Any study like this, doesn't take into account that on any "side" there are those who do it properly and those who don't.
In terms of carnivore, if you only eat steak, then you would need vitamins.
That said, many Indian vegetarians are constantly at the doctor needing B 12 injections,
It's also too easy to attribute diet to a covid outcome, as we know that those who respond adversely to psycho social stress have high levels of ROS ( PMID: 34555595) and we also know that a person with high levels of ROS provides the ideal platform for the spike to dock easily. ( PMID 37155555)
Which some might say explains why the whole of society was subjected to months of stress before the waves really it. Almost as if someone "knew" that pre-requisite.
Those who weren't fooled by the fear mongering ( like me ) , just might have fared a lot better than those emotionally and intellectually sucked in, in which case, diet might not have been the determining factor for infection severity.
On the other hand too, if people believed that masks protected them that might also reduce ROS. So there are many confounders which make such a study slightly legless....
A lot of vegans do consider themselves bullet-proof so that mindset alone, might have something to commend itself.
It's certainly funded by people who are pushing for vegetarianism in order to reduce carbon footprints, so there's a heavy bias in with these studies. It doesn't help that the media also chooses to go all in on the findings and going along with their narrative.
These nutritional studies are usually observational studies that are not very well done and really cannot resolve much about diet. They do serve the purpose of generating propaganda for preferred narratives, which probably the real point of the studies.
I just had a colleague at work tell me that he and another colleague watched the Netflix documentary about embracing a vegan diet and they are both completely sold on it. He was telling me how bad meat and dairy is for you and that he is done with both of them. I agreed with the anti-processed food part of his rant, but the actual evidence against meat and dairy is not nearly as strong as claimed in the video. It is just amazing how impressionable people are and they can do a sudden 180 without doing at least moderate dive into the data. Sigh.
Plant based diets are definitely better for people with kidney disease, lots of research, starting earlier rather than later. Better outcomes for the 1 in 6 people with CKD. This is due both to lower protein intake plus the alkalination of the body with plant based diet.
As a side note, those on dialysis, need higher amounts of high quality protein
High protein diets can lead to kidney damage. High meat diets acidify the body, also lead to excess TMAO production, both impact kidney negatively. Vegetables and fruit alkalinize. Just sayin.
Plenty of toxic chemicals also lead to kidney disease. Meat concentrates the glyphosate and other toxins used on feed. So yea yes, meat is implicated
Thanks for reviewing the study and pointing out its limitations. 👍🏽
I like the point you made about the American diet being full of things that are decidedly not food (but fill grocery store shelves), as well as toxins. The Netflix special sounds interesting as they are comparing a healthy omnivore diet with vegan, which I assume is no processed foods or unnatural sugars in either diet. A couple years ago I watched another Netflix special called "The game changers" which studied vegan athletes. Have you seen it? Some people experienced a significant increase in their performance. The big surprise for men was that, according to the study and the testosterone results they showed, a vegan diet significantly increased their testosterone levels.
I think you're right, there are more documentaries pushing people to eat less meat, supposedly for themselves and the planet. I agree with it to some extent, but you made a great point about whether the health benefits are because of greater fruit and vegetable intake, or less meat intake. Meat tends to fill a person up, so that alone may limit how much fruit and vegetables someone eats. I just don't trust the fake meats being produced.
I was a vegetarian for over 10 years, and I found I feel best when I eat some red meat. So now I have a healthy omnivore diet. I don't need big meals so I eat meat three or four times a week, sardines or clams and an egg almost everyday. I drink some fruit shake throughout the day and try and get enough leafy green vegetables in me. I was getting a local farm vegetable box every other week, and I decided to see if I could the last on the vegetables in that box and not buy any others. My hair started falling out, so that was a failed experiment, because I like having hair, and I obviously wasn't getting enough vitamins. 😃 (Even this emoji doesn't have hair).
I'd have to look at those studies and see how the breakdown goes. There are a few issues I saw with the twin study that may raise some questions. It also brings up issues of quality of biomarkers vs quantity (I.e. does lower cholesterol actually correlate to better health?).
As to the game changers, the makers of this new documentary are actually the same people, so there is a possible bias in how the studies are being framed. I would like to look into the testosterone factor. I'm curious what the reason could be for that (again, I'd have to look at the study and other information to figure out that reason).
Fake meats are funny because I question how many additives need to be included in order to make it taste meaty. I mean, those new burgers had to have artificial hemoglobin added to make the "meaty", so it's almost like doing everything besides actually getting it from an animal source. To that, I had a friend who went vegetarian and sort of wasn't humble about it. He mentioned eating plenty of "vegetarian" things such as vegetarian fish sticks. What exactly would need to be added to make it taste like fish?
Nutrients seem to be the biggest factor for many of these diets. There's a complex mix of vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients that may either hurt or harm us that should be considered and tends to get overlooked.
Now, to be fair most emojis are bald, and they are also mostly yellow. Either they're related to the characters from The Simpsons or the emojis are suffering from serious jaundice!
This is a great point - "It also brings up issues of quality of biomarkers vs quantity (I.e. does lower cholesterol actually correlate to better health?)." Sometimes I make assumptions based on the information that I've taken in.
Great analysis. The longer I practice, the more I learn about this topic and how nuanced it is. Diet can be tailored to feel (person's response to it), lab results (key! for guiding decision making to support the body's inherent biochemistry), heritage (say northern european, vs caribbean, vs north african vs south east asian) can have different needs/different demands, medical issues.... I can go on.
The SAD diet (Standard American Diet) is unfortunately pro-inflammatory. Combined with stress and low activity, is a path to developing our top illnesses, which includes cardiac, metabolic and autoimmune diseases (to name a few).
I let the following be my guide (as best as possible): eat seasonally, eat locally, eat whole foods and as much as possible, be guided by genetic heritage (go 2 gen back, how did they eat?)
Very good analysis. Another factor is that vegetarians and vegans are usually more careful about the quality of their food (not always), and consumption of corn byproducts and pesticide residues also play a role in overall health and susceptibility to disease. We would assume that the omnivores would be exposed to more of those “added” risks
Thanks! All of the things you mentioned may be a factor as well, although the vegetarian group seems was labeled as consuming more vegetable oils. The study took place in Brazil and so agricultural differences relative to the US should be considered. This sort of begs the question of whether more fruits and vegetables, irrespective of their sources, is better than fewer plant products overall. This sort of serves as another confounder for the omnivore group.
Yep, that's a huge one. By definition veggie-heads are very careful what they eat, which makes them extra health-conscious. It would be bizarre if they had the same or equal outcomes to the general public.
Unfortunately, many of them went for the jab and are having similar issues to the junk food junkies. Poorer health overall, and respiratory problems
I am a Vegan and I do not believe this study at all. I have had C19 and being Vegan didn’t prevent me from getting it. Likely, the Vegans were in general healthier than the Omnivore’s in the study. The SAD diet is just full of ultra processed foods sprayed with pesticides. Eat Whole Foods. Organic if you can afford it or pick the thing you eat the most of and buy organic of that item. The FDA has shown itself to be captured by big corporations for money, they are not looking for health problems from our food or pharmaceuticals. Buyer beware
That's essentially the point of pointing out this study. It can't tells us anything of actual risk reduction, but merely just tells us that the vegetarian group had lower incidences of COVID. Why is left as an unanswered question. In contrast, several articles reporting on this study use the headline similar to what I posted but stating that the study does say that eating vegetarian will reduce your risk of COVID sort of like the headline below:
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2024-01-10/meat-free-diet-could-cut-your-risk-for-covid
So it's a misleading headline that buries the actual fact that the study is not a risk-based study more than an observation of incidences.
I've often delved into the carnivore diet, maintaining it for weeks or months at a time; zero veggies, zero fiber, just meat.
I do fine like that, my weight goes down, I feel good, lots of energy and zero digestive issues.
The only reason I slip off the wagon is how everyone else eats other stuff and it's hard to be the party-pooper who turns his nose up at everything which isn't meat. And sourdough toast with lots of butter and fried egg on top is to die for...
I've generally held the opinion that any highly restrictive diet, whether carnivore or veganism is likely to be beneficial mainly due to the fact that these are exclusionary. I'm not sure if you've noticed but strangely there have been several YouTube videos from keto/carnivore people talking about how the trend seems to be going downward for these diets. I never looked into it for myself but it made for an interesting thought.
Yes, to die for!
I wonder about that meat only diet for an extended period of time. Do you take vitamins too? It takes more energy for the body to process meat and I'm not sure how that is on the body long-term. But I've heard in in the short term people feel great.
As I commented to Bigs I'd be curious if a meat-only diet is effective due to the fact that it's highly exclusionary. I thought about some of this when Mikhaila Peterson came out about her extremely restrictive diet (I believe it was essentially lamb and salt that she ate). She also talked about growing up with serious autoimmune issues which were not found until years later and after several surgeries for her weakened bones. She also appeared to have taken a ton of antibiotics when younger as well, so based on these factors I'm curious if her restrictive diet is a solution to an otherwise overexaggerated response from her body.
Observational study of one : I have an immunodeficiency (dysgammaglobulinemia) and was mostly carnivore when Delta hit. My tonsils and adenoids, were taken out at the age of four. Years of abs as a child too. Carnivore was appealing having followed Dr Mabry's story of how he beat diabetes and obesity, and hearing from others like Mikhaila, how that turned her around, and her father as well.
Total covid duration was 11 days. Worst symptom, the throat of knives. Many of my normie friends who rolled their eyes at my way of eating, fared a whole lot worse, and worst of all were some vegan friends, but there is vegan and vegan, and some know how to do it properly and others just eat carbs.
Any study like this, doesn't take into account that on any "side" there are those who do it properly and those who don't.
In terms of carnivore, if you only eat steak, then you would need vitamins.
That said, many Indian vegetarians are constantly at the doctor needing B 12 injections,
It's also too easy to attribute diet to a covid outcome, as we know that those who respond adversely to psycho social stress have high levels of ROS ( PMID: 34555595) and we also know that a person with high levels of ROS provides the ideal platform for the spike to dock easily. ( PMID 37155555)
Which some might say explains why the whole of society was subjected to months of stress before the waves really it. Almost as if someone "knew" that pre-requisite.
Those who weren't fooled by the fear mongering ( like me ) , just might have fared a lot better than those emotionally and intellectually sucked in, in which case, diet might not have been the determining factor for infection severity.
On the other hand too, if people believed that masks protected them that might also reduce ROS. So there are many confounders which make such a study slightly legless....
A lot of vegans do consider themselves bullet-proof so that mindset alone, might have something to commend itself.
Is the war against meat a sideline to push the Global Weather hoax/panic?
It's certainly funded by people who are pushing for vegetarianism in order to reduce carbon footprints, so there's a heavy bias in with these studies. It doesn't help that the media also chooses to go all in on the findings and going along with their narrative.
These nutritional studies are usually observational studies that are not very well done and really cannot resolve much about diet. They do serve the purpose of generating propaganda for preferred narratives, which probably the real point of the studies.
The headlines produced from this study is an example of this being used to drive the narrative.
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2024-01-10/meat-free-diet-could-cut-your-risk-for-covid
I just had a colleague at work tell me that he and another colleague watched the Netflix documentary about embracing a vegan diet and they are both completely sold on it. He was telling me how bad meat and dairy is for you and that he is done with both of them. I agreed with the anti-processed food part of his rant, but the actual evidence against meat and dairy is not nearly as strong as claimed in the video. It is just amazing how impressionable people are and they can do a sudden 180 without doing at least moderate dive into the data. Sigh.
Plant based diets are definitely better for people with kidney disease, lots of research, starting earlier rather than later. Better outcomes for the 1 in 6 people with CKD. This is due both to lower protein intake plus the alkalination of the body with plant based diet.
As a side note, those on dialysis, need higher amounts of high quality protein
And how did they get kidney disease in the first place? Not from meat.
High protein diets can lead to kidney damage. High meat diets acidify the body, also lead to excess TMAO production, both impact kidney negatively. Vegetables and fruit alkalinize. Just sayin.
Plenty of toxic chemicals also lead to kidney disease. Meat concentrates the glyphosate and other toxins used on feed. So yea yes, meat is implicated
Thanks for reviewing the study and pointing out its limitations. 👍🏽
I like the point you made about the American diet being full of things that are decidedly not food (but fill grocery store shelves), as well as toxins. The Netflix special sounds interesting as they are comparing a healthy omnivore diet with vegan, which I assume is no processed foods or unnatural sugars in either diet. A couple years ago I watched another Netflix special called "The game changers" which studied vegan athletes. Have you seen it? Some people experienced a significant increase in their performance. The big surprise for men was that, according to the study and the testosterone results they showed, a vegan diet significantly increased their testosterone levels.
I think you're right, there are more documentaries pushing people to eat less meat, supposedly for themselves and the planet. I agree with it to some extent, but you made a great point about whether the health benefits are because of greater fruit and vegetable intake, or less meat intake. Meat tends to fill a person up, so that alone may limit how much fruit and vegetables someone eats. I just don't trust the fake meats being produced.
I was a vegetarian for over 10 years, and I found I feel best when I eat some red meat. So now I have a healthy omnivore diet. I don't need big meals so I eat meat three or four times a week, sardines or clams and an egg almost everyday. I drink some fruit shake throughout the day and try and get enough leafy green vegetables in me. I was getting a local farm vegetable box every other week, and I decided to see if I could the last on the vegetables in that box and not buy any others. My hair started falling out, so that was a failed experiment, because I like having hair, and I obviously wasn't getting enough vitamins. 😃 (Even this emoji doesn't have hair).
I'd have to look at those studies and see how the breakdown goes. There are a few issues I saw with the twin study that may raise some questions. It also brings up issues of quality of biomarkers vs quantity (I.e. does lower cholesterol actually correlate to better health?).
As to the game changers, the makers of this new documentary are actually the same people, so there is a possible bias in how the studies are being framed. I would like to look into the testosterone factor. I'm curious what the reason could be for that (again, I'd have to look at the study and other information to figure out that reason).
Fake meats are funny because I question how many additives need to be included in order to make it taste meaty. I mean, those new burgers had to have artificial hemoglobin added to make the "meaty", so it's almost like doing everything besides actually getting it from an animal source. To that, I had a friend who went vegetarian and sort of wasn't humble about it. He mentioned eating plenty of "vegetarian" things such as vegetarian fish sticks. What exactly would need to be added to make it taste like fish?
Nutrients seem to be the biggest factor for many of these diets. There's a complex mix of vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients that may either hurt or harm us that should be considered and tends to get overlooked.
Now, to be fair most emojis are bald, and they are also mostly yellow. Either they're related to the characters from The Simpsons or the emojis are suffering from serious jaundice!
This is a great point - "It also brings up issues of quality of biomarkers vs quantity (I.e. does lower cholesterol actually correlate to better health?)." Sometimes I make assumptions based on the information that I've taken in.
Great analysis. The longer I practice, the more I learn about this topic and how nuanced it is. Diet can be tailored to feel (person's response to it), lab results (key! for guiding decision making to support the body's inherent biochemistry), heritage (say northern european, vs caribbean, vs north african vs south east asian) can have different needs/different demands, medical issues.... I can go on.
The SAD diet (Standard American Diet) is unfortunately pro-inflammatory. Combined with stress and low activity, is a path to developing our top illnesses, which includes cardiac, metabolic and autoimmune diseases (to name a few).
I let the following be my guide (as best as possible): eat seasonally, eat locally, eat whole foods and as much as possible, be guided by genetic heritage (go 2 gen back, how did they eat?)