As athletes, it’s important to get enough nutrients, such as protein and calcium, in your diet to keep your bones strong and help reduce the risk of fractures. But could diet put your bone health at risk?
A study, recently published in BMC Medicine, found that people who ate vegan, vegetarian, or pescetarian diets had an increased risk of bone fractures, particularly hip fractures. But it is important to note that not eating meat is not necessarily the problem in question; it is a lack of calcium and protein in general diets and a lower BMI that is likely to contribute to a person’s risk.
The vegan and pescetarian diet could increase the risk of fractures
A team of researchers analyzed the data collected for the EPIC-Oxford study, and people first reported their eating habits during initial enrollment between 1993 and 2001. The researchers then followed the participants over time to see How your eating habits affected your risk of fracture, circa 2010.
The results found that vegans, people who exclude all animal products from their diet, had a higher risk of total hip, leg and vertebral fractures than omnivores (labeled carnivores in the study), while fish eaters and vegetarians also had a higher risk of hip fractures.
Fish eaters were found to have a 26 percent increased risk of hip fractures, vegetarians a 25 percent increased risk, and vegans a 2.3 times greater risk, compared to omnivores.
This equates to three more cases of hip fractures per 1,000 people over a 10-year period in fish and vegetarian eaters compared to omnivores, and 15 more cases of hip fractures per 1,000 people over 10 years.
However, the study did not look at associations of meat in a person’s diet with fracture risks, so the results could not necessarily attribute fracture risk to a lack of meat in the diet. In contrast, the fish eaters, vegetarians, and vegans in the study had lower average BMIs and lower calcium and protein intakes than omnivores.
Factors influencing bone fracture
Rather, the differences in fracture risks seen here were likely due to a combination of dietary and non-dietary factors associated with people from different usual dietary groups.
Previous studies have shown that a low BMI is associated with an increased risk of hip fractures, and low calcium and protein intake have been linked to poorer bone health. Calcium is an essential component of bones and vital for preventing brittle bone disease (osteoporosis). Protein can also be important for bone health because it increases intestinal calcium absorption and stimulates the production of insulin-like growth factor, which may promote bone growth and development.
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the apparent link between a low BMI and an increased risk of hip fracture. These include high BMI scores associated with greater cushioning against the force of impact during a fall; improved estrogen production (which maintains bone density); or stronger bones from increased weight-bearing. However, the study findings indicate that more research is needed on bone health in vegans.
Ie, having a weight low and have an inadequate intake of calcium and protein and all risk factors for fractures. Therefore, if you do not eat meat (or even if you did), you must ensure that your diet contains adequate levels of calcium and protein and that you maintain a healthy BMI (neither under nor overweight) to reduce the risk of fractures.