Scientific Power of the Vegetarian Diet

High blood pressure is another major factor that contributes to cardiovascular disease and poor health. It is sometimes called the silent killer and is another major risk factor for other forms of heart disease. In fact, its incidence in the population almost perfectly mirrors weight problems; high blood pressure affects approximately a billion people worldwide.

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Vegetarians are the exceptions, of course.

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On average, vegetarians’ systolic blood pressure is 9.3 percent lower than meat eaters’, while their diastolic blood pressure is 18.2 percent lower.[1]

Vegetarianism, thinness, and low blood pressure are all powerfully related. Whereas over 30 percent of meat eaters suffer from high blood pressure, less than 4 percent of vegetarians experience higher than normal blood pressure, and “going vegan” virtually guarantees low blood pressure.

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In one interesting study researchers examined Trappist monks, who are vegetarians, and compared them with Benedictine monks, who are not. With the meat exception, both groups have remarkably similar lifestyles. The Trappist monks had much lower blood pressure.[2]

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When hypertensive patients adopt a vegetarian diet, they experience a marked decrease in blood pressure. This is an even more powerful relationship for people of color. Even those with normal blood pressure who ‘go vegetarian’ lower their blood pressure. Not only does a vegetarian diet work better than our best blood pressure medicine, but it has none of the troubling side effects of such medications—like impotence. And who could want that in their life?

 

“...Meat can never be a healthy food: it is pain-poisoned.”

—Sri Swami Satchidananda, founder of Integral Yoga and author of The Healthy Vegetarian

 

[1] Mozaffarian, D., Hao, T., Rimm, E.B., Willett, W.C., Zock, P.L., Willett, W.C., Hu, F.B. (2011). Changes in Diet and Lifestyle and Long-Term Weight Gain in Women and Men. The New England Journal of Medicine, 364:2392-2404.

[2] Barnard, N.D., Berkow, S.E. (2005). Blood pressure regulation and vegetarian diets. Nutrition Reviews. 63(1):1-8.