Any Vegetarians/Vegans here?

[James2014]

Yes. "Correlation is not causation," right guys?

To be fair, the various studies we've talked about seem to indicate that humans are a highly flexible species (as you'd expect from omnivores): we can live healthily on almost anything from plant roots to elk meat, given enough dietary variety to avoid diseases caused by vitamin deficiency, and a lifestyle that is conducive to maintaining cardiovasucular health.

Right now, my opinion is that diet type is not a health issue, but an issue of economics or morals.

Why then does a vegan diet improve health in diabetic patients to a greater extent than a Mediterranean diet(which was varied and not vitamin deficient), as the following study shows?

If one eats a Mediterranean diet that includes meat one will certainly be healthier than eating a standard western diet, and even then one can still be healthy in the short term. But one could also say the same thing with smoking. We know that meat contains a number of toxins. We know consumption of these worsens health both in populations and in randomised controlled trials. There may be some minimal amount of meat eating that does not harm health, just as their maybe some minimal level of smoking. We do not know what this is however, and therefore no level of either smoking or meat eating is without risk.

I do broadly agree though that the primary reasons for veganism should be moral and environmental/economic.