Women who are vegetarians are more likely to experience hip fractures later in life than those who regularly eat meat, according to a recent study published in BMC Medicine.
According to the researchers, vegetarians may not be consuming enough nutrients for strong bones and muscles, which may raise their risk of fractures and falls.
The main study author and a researcher at the Nutritional Epidemiology Group at the University of Leeds, James Webster, advises vegetarians to make a meticulous meal plan and ensure they don’t lose out on nutrients they miss out on when they don’t eat meat or fish.
He asserted that vegetarians may consume less critical nutrients, among other factors, and are therefore more likely to have weaker bones and less muscular mass. “Those two factors raise people’s risk of hip fractures.”
Webster and colleagues looked at the health and nutritional records of more than 26,000 women in the UK Women’s Cohort Study, aged 35 to 69, who were classified as pescatarians, vegetarians, frequent meat eaters, or occasional meat eaters.
Over the long term of an average follow-up of 22 years, 822 women, or 3%, suffered hip fractures. Vegetarians have a 30% higher chance of breaking their hip than ordinary meat eaters. Neither pescatarians nor infrequent meat eaters noticed any differences.
Nearly 90% of hip fractures are caused by falls, according to The Guardian, and older people with weaker bones and frailer bones are more prone to have hip fractures than younger people. Fractures can be followed by frailty, falls, and fractures.
Webster and coworkers, according to the newspaper, think that vegetarians are more likely than meat eaters to be underweight and that they might have less muscle, weaker bones, and less fat than meat eaters, all of which would otherwise protect them from falls.
According to Webster, vegetarians should think about ingesting fortified cereals that are supplemented with extra iron and vitamin B12 for bone health, as well as getting enough protein from nuts, lentils, and beans.
The researchers recommend that future studies examine non-European populations as well as vegetarian men’s risk of hip fracture. Men and women who are vegetarians typically have less healthy bones than those who eat meat, according to past research.
