New Study Shows Vegans at Significantly Higher Risk of Bone Fractures

The study results that emerged this past week about how people on a vegan diet showed increased incidences of bone fractures included that vegetarians and pescatarians also showed similar increases.  The vegan diet is typically lower in calcium and protein because vegans do not eat anything that comes from animals, which are primary sources of these nutrients.  In this study that came out of BMC Medicine, vegans were at an average 43% higher risk for fractures than those who ate meat.  Fractures were found throughout the body, but mainly hips and legs.  The biggest difference came in hip fractures, where vegans were 2.3 times more likely to have than those people who ate meat.  Previous studies have shown that supplemental calcium and vitamin D help offset these risks, but that was admittedly not investigated for this particular study.  More research needs to be done to include data on those who take supplements.  To read the fine points of this recent information, here is a link to a great article put out by MedicalNewsToday.com:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/vegan-diets-may-be-linked-to-a-higher-risk-of-bone-fractures#Vegan-bone-health-requires-more-research