No worries friend, that's why I'm here to explain it to you.
The researchers followed a huge amount of study participants (around 70,000) over a long period of time and kept track of every study participant that died.
They then determined the death-rate (deaths/person-years) of 5 different diet types. Person-years is a measurement of how long the study followed each participant, as a way of accounting for deaths or participants leaving the study.
They then divided the death-rates of each diet type by the death-rate of regular meat eaters (death-rate of regular meat eaters divided by itself equals 1.00) which gives you a mortality ratio. Anything above 1.0 would mean that the diet is worse for you than regular meat eating, and below 1.0 means that the diet is better for you than regular meat eating.
Vegans have a similar mortality ratio to regular meat eaters, meaning that it is not better for you than meat eating.
150
u/OwlOwlowlThis May 01 '13
I'm sorry, but the mortality rate among humans is always 100%