I’d like to point out that many of the articles you provided linked vegetarian / vegan diets to poor health outcomes were performed in China or global contexts. Globally, meat is quite expensive and therefore you could expect that correlational studies will find that meat intake is correlated positively with health outcomes simply due to income effects. I don’t see that as particularly strong evidence that vegan / vegetarian diets are unhealthy when most existing research finds benefits for plant-based diets, especially for cardiovascular health.
Separately from the debate of veganism vs eating meat, we have strong evidence that high intake of fiber, low intake of saturated fats, and low intake of red and/or processed meats are all correlated with positive health benefits. Given that, my prior assumption is that a vegan/vegetarian diet (which is likely to be high in fiber, low in sat fats and have zero red and/or processed meat) is generally going to be healthier. It would take very strong evidence to the contrary for me to shift my mindset to believe that vegan diets are less healthy.
Finally, if you are going to consume animal products, aside from bivalves dairy probably causes the least suffering. Wild-caught fish might be more human than farmed, but substitution effects and a fixed population of wild-caught fish means that consumption of wild-caught fish is still going to result in higher demand for farmed fish. This analysis (If You’re Going To Eat Animals, Eat Beef and Dairy — EA Forum) found that dairy has the “least suffering per kg of product.” Dairy is also a great source of B12 and Calcium, which addresses two of the key nutrient deficiencies in vegan diets. Dairy is also healthier than beef, especially if you are consuming low fat dairy products.
Agree with your point about the Chinese study reference, about healthy aging for elderly Chinese people. The OP uses it to make three separate points, about cognitive impairment, dose-response effects and lower overall odds of healthy aging, but it’s pretty clear that the study is basically showing the effects of poverty on health in old age.
Elderly Chinese people are mostly vegetarian or vegan because a) they can’t afford meat, or b) have stopped eating meat because they struggle with other health issues, both of which would massively bias the outcomes! So their poor outcomes might be partly through diet-related effects, like nutrient/protein deficiency, but could also be sanitation, malnutrition in earlier life (these are people brought up in extreme famines), education (particularly for the cognitive impairment test), and the health issues that cause them to reduce meat.
The study fails to control for extreme poverty by grouping together everyone who earned <8000 Yuan a year (80% of the survey sample!), which is pretty ridiculous, because the original dataset should have continuous data...
The paper also makes it very clear that diet quality is the real driver, and that healthy plant-based diets score similarly to omnivorous diets “with vegetarians of higher diet quality not significantly differing in terms of overall healthy aging and individual outcomes when compared to omnivores”.
Probably less importantly, it conditions on survival to 80, which creates a case of survivorship bias/collider bias. So there could be a story where less healthy omnivores tend to die earlier (you get effects like this with older smokers, sometimes), and the survivors appear healthier.
Separately from the debate of veganism vs eating meat, we have strong evidence that high intake of fiber, low intake of saturated fats, and low intake of red and/or processed meats are all correlated with positive health benefits.
I’d like to point out that many of the articles you provided linked vegetarian / vegan diets to poor health outcomes were performed in China or global contexts. Globally, meat is quite expensive and therefore you could expect that correlational studies will find that meat intake is correlated positively with health outcomes simply due to income effects. I don’t see that as particularly strong evidence that vegan / vegetarian diets are unhealthy when most existing research finds benefits for plant-based diets, especially for cardiovascular health.
Separately from the debate of veganism vs eating meat, we have strong evidence that high intake of fiber, low intake of saturated fats, and low intake of red and/or processed meats are all correlated with positive health benefits. Given that, my prior assumption is that a vegan/vegetarian diet (which is likely to be high in fiber, low in sat fats and have zero red and/or processed meat) is generally going to be healthier. It would take very strong evidence to the contrary for me to shift my mindset to believe that vegan diets are less healthy.
Finally, if you are going to consume animal products, aside from bivalves dairy probably causes the least suffering. Wild-caught fish might be more human than farmed, but substitution effects and a fixed population of wild-caught fish means that consumption of wild-caught fish is still going to result in higher demand for farmed fish. This analysis (If You’re Going To Eat Animals, Eat Beef and Dairy — EA Forum) found that dairy has the “least suffering per kg of product.” Dairy is also a great source of B12 and Calcium, which addresses two of the key nutrient deficiencies in vegan diets. Dairy is also healthier than beef, especially if you are consuming low fat dairy products.
Agree with your point about the Chinese study reference, about healthy aging for elderly Chinese people. The OP uses it to make three separate points, about cognitive impairment, dose-response effects and lower overall odds of healthy aging, but it’s pretty clear that the study is basically showing the effects of poverty on health in old age.
Elderly Chinese people are mostly vegetarian or vegan because a) they can’t afford meat, or b) have stopped eating meat because they struggle with other health issues, both of which would massively bias the outcomes! So their poor outcomes might be partly through diet-related effects, like nutrient/protein deficiency, but could also be sanitation, malnutrition in earlier life (these are people brought up in extreme famines), education (particularly for the cognitive impairment test), and the health issues that cause them to reduce meat.
The study fails to control for extreme poverty by grouping together everyone who earned <8000 Yuan a year (80% of the survey sample!), which is pretty ridiculous, because the original dataset should have continuous data...
The paper also makes it very clear that diet quality is the real driver, and that healthy plant-based diets score similarly to omnivorous diets “with vegetarians of higher diet quality not significantly differing in terms of overall healthy aging and individual outcomes when compared to omnivores”.
Probably less importantly, it conditions on survival to 80, which creates a case of survivorship bias/collider bias. So there could be a story where less healthy omnivores tend to die earlier (you get effects like this with older smokers, sometimes), and the survivors appear healthier.
There is also causal evidence, e.g. the Cochrane review, Reduction in saturated fat intake for cardiovascular disease.