Sep 15th 2008 By Jeremy Taylor

A Vegetarian Diet Shrinks the Brain

(Our happy hour fact to amaze your drinking buddies with.)

According to a new study, vegetarians and vegans are six times more likely to suffer from brain shrinkage than meat eaters.

The link was discovered after scientists at Oxford University ran memory tests, physical checks and brain scans on 107 people between the ages of 61and 87, and then retested them five years later.

Researchers speculate the loss of brain mass in vegetarians and vegans is due to a deficiency of Vitamin B12, which is found in meat, fish and eggs. This type of brain atrophy is linked to Alzheimer's Disease and other cognitive failings.

The decision to eat meat is often attacked by veggies, but it now seems as though these kinds of affronts may just be a product of small-mindedness.

... and a few celebrities who went naked for their animal cause:

Celebs Who Strip for a Cause

Because it's Pamela Anderson, it doesn't take much to visualize this PETA ad without the lettuce.

PETA

There isn't trace of "Without a Trace" star Roselyn Sanchez's clothing in this PETA PSA.

PETA

Amanda Beard wasn't able to add to her seven Olympic medals during a disappointing 2008 summer games, but her decision to pose nude for PETA didn't leave her male fans disappointed.

PETA

Playing up the "Lolita" role that made her famous, Dominique Swain become PETA's youngest anti-fur spokeswoman when she struck this naughty school girl pose at the age of 21.

PETA

Alicia Silverstone's movie career may have slowed, but you can still see a lot of her in this PETA ad.

PETA

Being that Holly Madison is a professional nude model, that really isn't much of a sacrifice.

PETA

These days Naomi Campbell and PETA are at odds over the supermodel's habit of wearing fur. Evidence from happier times still exists.

PETA

Tags: brain - oxford university - OxfordUniversity - vegetarian

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Tuesday 16 September

By Chiem Ma

Neutral

Because we all know those little pills the the vitamin B-12 bottle are actually Jelly Bellys in disguise...

Wednesday 17 September

By Samantha Lewis

Neutral

To all carnivores and herbivores.

Everyone gets defensive when they themselves feel attacked about their diet or even religion. I'm not saying that either side is the winner or looser in the arguments you're having against each-other.

You yourselves as a carnivore or herbivore reading this article, can tell it would be perceived as offensive to a person who does not eat meat. Plain and simple the article gives their evidence of why they think vegetarians have, to put it simply "brain shrinkage".

I believe the individual who wrote this article should have stuck to their study's results rather than insulting anyone with things such as "now seems as though these kinds of affronts may just be a product of small-mindedness."

If anyone called someone "small-minded" because of the way they ate, which god they believe in, or even simple things, like which school you attend, they would likely be offended in some way.

So i'd like to say this, I myself am a vegetarian, I have been my entire life. I'll be 18 years old this november. I'm not going to say weather or not i believe this study is correct, but i have to say it worries me.

Regardless, I'm firm in staying a vegetarian, not because i'm against people eating meat, but because it was how i was raised since birth, and it's outside my comfort zone to eat animals. My boyfriend is a carnivore, my friends are carnivores, and heck, most of the people reading this are too. I don't dislike any of you, and i don't condone you for your eating habits.

I wish that more people could be open minded about this. Please, no more small-minded jokes.

The vegetarians that read this are offended, and really, we don't much like the idea that our brains could in some way be deficient because of our way of eating. The information in this article was presented in an almost cruel way, it could have been said nicely.

As a result, vegetarians are saying some things meat-eaters find offensive, and everyone keeps defending themselves by saying some pretty harsh things.

Vegetarians? Does it matter to you if our IQ's might be a bit lower because of our way of eating? Yes, what is written here sucks, but you probably wont change the way you eat, I'm not going to. I might go get some good vitamin supplements, but hey, lets let this argument rest.

Carnivores? (I'm sorry if any of you find that term in any way offensive, i liked it when i was very young and i find it to be an endearing title. If it offends you, i'd like to apologize.) Anyway.. This article may feel more like an ego boost to you, seeing as the material favors you. But i'd like to ask that superiority is left out of the blogging here, because it's hurting and offending a lot of people.

I feel like this argument is as old as time, who's better than who? Does it matter? Can't we all just play nicely..?

If anyone responds to this in a way that says "I'm better than you" or "see, vegetarians are smart" , i believe you may have missed the point of what i'm saying here..

Thank you.

Tuesday 16 September

By Nick

Neutral

Not carnivore. Omnivore.

Learn the difference between the 2, and then I might take your little vegetarian nonsense seriously. Maybe. If you're lucky. But i doubt it.

And anyone heard of maddox? "For every animal you don't eat, I'm going to eat 3." I actually live by this, and if i'm with a veggie, I purposely eat more meat than I would ordinarily, just to spite them.

I don't mind people who are veggies, but people who try to chastise me with their "you eat meat, you're a bad person," and try to promote and infer a veggie diet is more beneficial by spouting nonsense "information" can jog on, because I laugh in the faces of morons.

Wednesday 17 September

By Samantha Lewis

Highest Rank

You're right, the proper term is Omnivore, but like i said, the term
"Carnivore" was developed when i was very young, and it stuck. Kind
of like you call us "Veggies".

Oddly enough that's an inaccurate title also.

If i'd said i eat meat would you have taken my statement more
seriously? I'm not sure if trying to get people to realize that
bitching at each-other online is petty, could be considered
"nonsense", but i'm actually not offended by the 'little' remark.

Thanks =]

And for the maddox thing, for all that meat you're eating, there
shall be 3 more veggies for me. You're on! You and i should begin a
study on who has the most clogged arteries. ;)

Wednesday 17 September

By Alistair Cornell

Highest Rank

Samantha has the right idea here.

I have just read the journal publication that this comes from and there are a few leaps of bad journalism resulting from it.

1. It's a small study of (107) older people with no cognitive dysfuntion - there is nothing wrong with these people.

2. It's not a study of vegans - there is no report about the diet preferences but I would suggest that 100% of the sample have eaten meat all their lives.

3. This is correlation not causation. "Brain shrinkage" is *linked* to onset of Alzheimer's. The study isn't big enough to say much more than there is evidence more study would be useful.

Other factors are involved in brain shrinkage; body mass indexation (fat people suffer brain shrinkage), alcohol intake and use of other drugs.

I want to know where the author, Jeremy Tayor got the "six-times" figure for vegetarians and vegans since there is nothing about it in the original scientific journal publication.

This is just "make-it-up-as-you-go" journalism.

Problem is that there are not very many good reasons to eat animal products like we do in the west and a whole lot of good reasons to consume a largely if not wholly plant based diet.

Mum said "Eat your veg..." She was right.

Wednesday 17 September

By Samantha Lewis

Highest Rank

Thank you! I greatly appreciate you taking the time to research and clear this up. =]

Tuesday 16 September

By Sam

Neutral

BS! B12 can easily be obtained on a Vegan diet. You just have to know what to eat! Also any fortified Vegan non-dairy milk has it. BS!!!!

Tuesday 16 September

By Hans

Neutral

Including vegetarians is disingenuous. Vegetarians can still eat eggs and fish. It's vegans who might have a problem. Never the less, how you balance your diet is important whether you choose to eat meat or not. There are plenty of vitamin deficiencies that a person with an excessive meat diet can get and this is in fact quite a common problem among the general population, who eat lots of fast food in particular. Taking a jab at people who try to eat healthily and doing so for ecological reasons and compassion for animals is ridiculous.

Tuesday 16 September

By Bethany Karn

Neutral

Hans - Vegetarians do NOT eat fish! Since when are fish not living
creatures???

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Vegetarian

Tuesday 16 September

By Bethany

Neutral

Hans - Vegetarians do NOT eat fish! Since when are fish not living
creatures???

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Vegetarian

Tuesday 16 September

By Jon G

Highest Rank

Step 1, understand what it means to test a population. A population isn't you. It isn't your wife or sister either. A good population is random and takes people from all walks of life.

Step 2, the population being studied.
There is no question, don't try to imply there is doubt, that vegetarians and vegans have a much harder time getting required nutrients. Don't get me wrong, I'm a vegetarian. Its true though. Combine with that your average population, which really isn't that bright.

and you get Step 3, understand what correlation is:
Correlation is not causation. It is not being a vegetarian that caused b12 deficiency. And certaintly not vegeterianism that caused brain shrinkage. But combine a group of people of average intelligence, in a not vegan friendly society (better than ALOT of places in the world, france coming to mind, but not as good as places like India) and you will expect that a number of them will get b12 deficiency. That means that it takes roughly 6x more work to eat diet with b12 in it as a vegetarian. I feel that sounds about right actually.

Tuesday 16 September

By Michael

Neutral

"Vitamin b12 deficiencies cause brain atrophy"

We already knew that...that's why vegs take vitamins....

--Michael

Thursday 09 October

By Pete

Neutral

Depends on the type of vegetarian
http://www.ivu.org/faq/definitions.html

Tuesday 16 September

By Brian

Neutral

For any of the smart meat eaters that think they know what goes on behind the scenes.
http://www.chooseveg.com/animal-cruelty.asp

Tuesday 16 September

By Bethany

Highest Rank

Hans - Vegetarians do NOT eat fish! Since when are fish not living creatures???

Tuesday 16 September

By Jake

Highest Rank

What a wildly ridiculous assumption!! It's B12 deficiency which can shrink the brain - not being vegetarian or vegan!

You're taking the research and making the assumption that every vegan and vegetarian is B12 deficient.

Now that the protein myth has been debunked, the meat and dairy industries are targetting vitamin B12.

My soy milk is fortified with vitamin B12 and I LOVE eating Vegemite. I get plenty of B12 in my diet thanks.

The same article goes on to say that being overweight can shrink your brain. So why not use the same wild assumption and say that the vast majority of overweight people in the world are meat and dairy consumers - therefore a meat/dairy diet shrinks the brain.

A fair and balanced story would recommend that EVERYONE checks their vitamin and mineral levels rather than relying solely on the advice of the people who produce the food.

Once upon a time doctors advertised the benefits of smoking (because the tobacco industry told us how good it was for us). Eventually they produced cigarettes with lower nicotine and tar levels before finally being sued by trusting consumers.

In years to come I believe we'll see a similar thing with the meat and dairy industries. They're already producing low-fat milk, McDonalds are providing 'healthy choices' and meat/dairy consumers are beginning to notice the adverse effects on their waistlines and overall health.

Whatever you choose to eat, have your health and vitamin/minerals levels checked regularly. Don't rely purely on what you eat, how you look, or how you feel.

Wednesday 17 September

By Samantha Lewis

Neutral

You're right, the proper term is Omnivore, but like i said, the term "Carnivore" was developed when i was very young, and it stuck. Kind of like you call us "Veggies".

Oddly enough that's an inaccurate title also.

If i'd said i eat meat would you have taken my statement more seriously? I'm not sure if trying to get people to realize that bitching at each-other online is petty, could be considered "nonsense", but i'm actually not offended by the 'little' remark.

Thanks =]

And for the maddox thing, for all that meat you're eating, there shall be 3 more veggies for me. You're on! You and i should begin a study on who has the most clogged arteries. ;)

Monday 13 October

By EMT

Neutral

Samantha, you act as though vegetarians and vegans are outside your house with torches and pitchforks or something. I know people can get annoying with their beliefs, but this is a good cause if you consider the pain these animals have to endure. Morons??? Let me just take this opportunity to say that if you eat meat, thats your choice. I am a strong advocate of changing the meat industry into the vegan industry, and you know, if that happened overnight and all the names of all the fast food restaurants and everything stayed the same, nobody would even notice because of how amazingly similar in taste clean substitutes have become. People would just strangely begin to feel better. By the way, though, not to pick on you for too long, but do you really try to eat more meat to offset people who don't eat any??? You MAY need to get some help on that one, friend. Maybe some people just are more violent???

Wednesday 17 September

By Ari

Neutral

This article is totally misleading. No where does it say that the people in the study were vegans or vegetarians, it just says they had low levels of B12. Meat eaters can easily experience absorption issues with B12 as they get older resulting in lower levels. Vegans/vegetarians who have done an ounce of research know about supplementing B12 through vitamins or fortified foods.

Thursday 18 September

By Rosemary

Neutral

The article is a gross oversimplication.

It has long been known that lack of Vitamin B complex, which is missing or insufficient in strict vegetarian diets, causes irreversible damage to brain areas which process short term memories into permanent storage.

The problem is not restricted to vegetarians.

It is seen much more frequently in chronic alcoholics where the alcohol interferes with the body's ability to process the B vitamins and the chronic drunkeness results in a poor diet to boot.
The problem also occurs in people who have been vomiting for several days or more. The problem is seen in those who suffer from bulimia and from other eating disorders.

The journalist who wrote the article is showing scientific ignorance, poor investigative skills and an industry-condemned failure to check their facts. Although memory problems are a symptom of Alzheimer's Disease, Vitamin B deficiency results in a disorder with a different name (Korsakov's Syndrome) and qualitively different form of memory disorder. It also results in damage to very different parts of the brain. Alzheimer's causes extensive shrinkage to the cortex or rind of the brain. Korsakov's syndrome causes the atrophy of a couple of pea-sized nuclei attached to the base of the brain, a finger-nail sized portion of the "old brain" areas in the mid-brain, and the deterioration and atrophy of the pathways connecting these areas. This is hardly enough damage to result in a description of the brain as "shrunken". The atrophy (a technical term which is used to describe both shrinkage and deterioration) in the brain's of os those with Korsakov's syndrome (which is the advanced form of Vitamin B deficiency which results in permanent damage) is less in area the atrophied brain cells of those who have Parkinson's disease. The areas affected in Korsakov's and Parkinson's diseases are also quite remote from each other.

The areas of "shrinkage" is not a good indication of the magnitude of effect that is has on general functioning, or the level of effect which is has on daily functioning. All three disorders result in death within several years of diagnosis. Unlike Alzheimers and Parkinson's Disease, the early forms of Vitamin B deficiency can be largely, but not entirely, reversed before they result in the severe and irreversible form (Korsakov Dementia) which typically leads to the death of the patient in less than 3 years.

Responsible vegetarians include yeast in their diets, a substance which is rich in the necessary B vitamins. It is irresponsible and ignorant vegetarians, and their children, who are at risk of Vitamin B deficiency disorders. The key is education.

Alcoholics, however, are far more at risk. The industry has attempted to protect itself by fortifying some types of beer with Vitamin B. This does not get around the problem that it is the alcohol itself which causes the deficiency by interfering with its digestion and bodily processing.

The message that a competent journalist should have got across is that if you want to avoid "brain shrinkage" due to Vitamin B deficiency then you should give up alcohol if you are a meat eater and take vitamin B supplements if you are a vegetarian.