Do vegans and vegetarians live longer? Despite what we believe, the choice not to eat animal products does not translate into greater longevity, at least according to the latest studies, which have not confirmed the idea that vegans and vegetarians, getting sick less, lived longer. Without a doubt, you can die from different diseases , but overall the lifespan does not change between omnivores, vegetarians, vegans and those who have instead made hybrid choices such as pescetarians (vegans who eat fish). And the data, which concern a very large sample of the British population, over sixty thousand people living in Great Britain, would collect the results of two studies, one lasting four years, and the other six; respectively the Oxford Vegetarian Study(OVS) and the EPIC-Oxford cohort .

The need for this comparison arose from the fact that precisely by placing the mortality of vegetarians and vegans as the subject of investigation compared to those who ate a diet complete with animal products, including meat, in the last thirty years scientists have begun to collect data on heterogeneous slices of the population , without finding as a result a significant reduction in mortality in vegans and vegetarians. If you thought that vegetarians have lived longer, for some years already, by documenting you, you could have been disappointed by the negligible percentages of difference between the levels of mortality of the groups according to the large studies. In fact, the difference in the incidence of neoplasms between one and the other group was small, as demonstrated in the Epic studies and in the study on the Adventist community. and with respect to other risks of life-threatening diseases.

This new study made it possible to trace a large portion of the British population over the course of the ten years. The result? Vegetarians and vegans have the same life expectancies as omnivores: a ten percent lower incidence for malignant neoplasms was found in vegetarians and fish-eaters than in those who often ate meat (more than five times a week); specifically, the risks for some neoplasms are higher for certain groups and lower for others, but considering also respiratory, celebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases, the overall life expectancy is similar for all groups.