Vegetarian diet aids weight loss, lowers blood sugar in adults with overweight or type 2 diabetes

A 12-week vegan diet may lead to clinically meaningful weight loss and improved glycemic control in overweight adults and patients with type 2 diabetes, according to a meta-analysis of 11 randomized trials including nearly 800 participants (over 18 years of age), Presented at this year's European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Maastricht, Netherlands (4-7)

However, compared to other diets, a vegetarian diet is rich in fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and seeds, does not contain all animal-derived foods, and does not affect blood pressure or triglycerides (a type of fat in the blood)

In this study, researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of all relevant English-language randomized trials, to be published in March 2022, comparing the effects of a vegan diet to other types of diets on metabolic disease risk factors -- weight, body Mass Index (BMI), blood sugar levels, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol (so-called "bad cholesterol"), HDL cholesterol and triglycerides

The vegetarian diet was compared with passive control groups (participants continued to eat normally without dietary changes) or active control groups (participants followed other dietary interventions, such as a Mediterranean diet, a different diabetes diet, or a partial control diet)

We analyzed data from 11 studies involving 796 people with overweight (BMI ≥25 kg/m2) or type 2 diabetes (mean age, 48 to 61 years)

The analysis found that the vegan diet significantly reduced body weight (mean effect of -4.

Further analysis found that the vegan diet had even greater reductions in body weight and BMI compared with the normal diet without dietary changes (-7.

"This rigorous review is the best available evidence to date to suggest with reasonable certainty that adherence to a vegan diet for at least 12 weeks may lead to clinically meaningful weight loss and improved blood sugar levels, and thus may be useful in the management of obesity and type 2 diabetes," Termannsen said.

The researchers noted several problems with their findings, including the small sample size of most studies, the fact that vegan diets varied widely in carbohydrate, protein and fat content, and that there were no fully matched studies that prescribed controlled dietary interventions other than vegan diets in All other aspects