Scientists reveal best diet to reduce death risk in older adults

According to scientists at Loma Linda University (LLU), a pescetarian diet can protect older people from neurological diseases such as strokes, dementia and Parkinson's.

The scientists classified all meat-free diets as “vegetarian” – including pescetarian and vegan diets – and compared these with data from people who followed “non-vegetarian” or “semi-vegetarian” diets.

They concluded that a vegetarian diet contributes to longer life and that eating fish provides the greatest benefit – especially in people around the age of 85.

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“Overall, this is the clearest evidence yet that American vegetarians are better protected against premature death than non-vegetarians,” said lead researcher Professor Gary Frazer.

The study analyzed data from 88,400 Seventh-day Adventists in the United States and Canada and found that vegetarians had an overall risk of death about 12 percent lower than non-vegetarians during the study period (2002–2015).

Participants who followed a pescetarian diet had an 18 percent lower risk of death, those who followed a traditional vegetarian diet – without meat and fish, but with eggs and milk – had a 15 percent lower risk, and for vegans the risk of death fell by less than 3 percent during the study period.

There were also differences between the sexes. Male vegans were apparently much better off than male meat eaters, but the opposite was the case for female subjects: they seemed to be at higher risk if they lived a vegan lifestyle.

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Middle-aged people appear to benefit from a vegetarian diet. However, older vegetarians who do not eat fish have been found to be at higher risk of stroke, dementia and Parkinson's disease than vegetarians who eat fish.

“These increased risks of neurological disease among vegetarians in their 80s were not enormous, but there is something going on that we should not ignore if we want the vegetarian benefit to be maintained for all vegetarians in their later years,” Fraser said.

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The protective effect of fish may be due to the high amounts of beneficial fatty acids in fish and seafood – the so-called omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA – which have been shown to have positive effects on brain health.

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reference

Abris, GP, Shavlik, DJ, Mathew, RO, Butler, FM, Oh, J., Sirirat, R., Sveen, LE, Fraser, GE (2024). Cause-specific and all-cause mortality among vegetarians compared with non-vegetarian participants in the Adventist Health Study-2 cohort. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (n/a)n/a.