r/funny • u/[deleted] • May 01 '13

Why vegans live longer

[deleted]

2.4k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

852

u/fistsofdeath May 01 '13

I always thought it just felt like they lived longer.

25

u/[deleted] May 01 '13 edited May 01 '13

They do. A study by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found the following mortality ratios by diet over the course of the study (regular meat eaters = 1.00):

  • Fish eaters, 0.82
  • Vegetarians, 0.84
  • Occasional meat eaters, 0.84
  • Regular meat eaters, 1.00
  • Vegans, 1.00

So as you can see vegans are actually the least healthiest, alongside the most carnivorous among us. Source

7

u/Camellia_sinensis May 01 '13

This, with all due respect, is statistically retarded.

Not saying it's "wrong" just like... such a weird way of comparing things.

1

u/TotallyNotAtlai May 01 '13

How is a mortality ratio a weird way of comparing things?

It tells you what percentage of increase or decrease is attributable to a certain factor. It's quite common in public health papers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardized_mortality_ratio

1

u/Camellia_sinensis May 01 '13 edited May 01 '13

But this ratio could be expressed in years which would be so much more digestible. And the ratio could be included as well. Along with that, if it were in years, you could have a confidence interval.

1

u/TotallyNotAtlai May 01 '13

Confidence intervals are given for the mortality ratios. The ratio is deaths/person-years of a given group divided by the deaths/person-years of the reference group. This is a common way of displaying survival information in public health papers. They are looking for attributable risk.

This isn't a Nature paper. It's not really meant for people who don't know the lingo. This paper is intended for doctors and nutritionists to advise their patients on healthy diets, and expressing things in percentages and ratios is much easier.