Essay Sample Describing the Effect of Vegetarian Diet on Weight Reduction

Obesity has been a health issue for a long time in the whole world. There has been an increment of the obese people from 28.8% to 36.9% for men and women from 29.8 to 38% in women from the year 1980 to 2013(Huang, Ru-Yi, et al.,109). There are so many diseases that are associated with overweight like diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, hyperlipidaemia, cancer, and also mortality. Statistics show that obesity has caused about 3.4 million deaths as well as 3.8% disability problems in the year 2010. The obesity problem has increased so much in the United States in the past four decades, and at least two-thirds of the adults in America suffer from this condition of overweight. The management of obesity or overweight in 1998 gave an account of 9.1 per cent of annual United States expenditures in medical.

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Several different diets have been proposed to help in weight reduction as a way of fighting obesity and also morbidity that is associated with it. All-cause mortality, diabetes, and coronary heart disease have been said to be reduced by the introduction of a diet of vegetarian patterns. There are two main types of vegetarian diets which are Lacto- ovo vegetarian diet and the vegan diet. The Lacto -ovo diet is whereby the consumption of eggs and milk is allowed, but someone is advised to avoid any type of meat consumption. The vegan diet is a pattern in which all animal products are avoided.

All the results about these patterns have not been proved to be true yet or are not yet concluded maybe reason being small sample sizes, poor adherence, diverse population, and also different durations of intervention. Now that no large sample sizes study has been given. Meta-Analysis research was conducted of random clinical trials that compare the effect of the diets of non- vegetarian with that of vegetarian on weight loss in the whole population. The researchers also investigated if the results were different between the two types of vegetarian diets that is lacto ovo and vegan patterns.

There were methods used in this research which included the use of data sources and searches. For this method, the researchers adopted the Cochrane Collaboration search strategy. PubMed was searched through the NCBI system and the EMBASE through Ovid to see any random studies which included the effects of diets of the vegetarian and non- vegetarian population on the reduction of weight. The researchers used some keywords during their research in this method to get relevant and clear publications.

The main words in their search included weight and vegetarian diet, weight and lacto- ovo vegetarian diet, and also, they used to weight and a vegan diet. All these words would help them get some publications from the English literature and search limited (Huang, Huang and Chavarro 109-116). They reviewed different bibliographies of some studies that have been identified and also data that was current Database 2014 was reviewed for any reference to be added. To clarify their data, the researchers conducted three original authors.

Another method they used was the study selection. Studies were clinical trials and random that compared vegan and lacto ovo vegetarian diets to non -vegetarian diets were studied including the changes in body weight and if possible, they conducted the authors of the information. Non-original articles, unclear studies and abstracts were excluded from this study. The studies that were exercise advised with the intervention of diet were included while those with diet intervention and combined physical activity were excluded.

Data extraction and quality assessment was also another method used in this research. Any eligible study, information about the year of publication, intervention, sample size, and weight change was collected and recorded. All articles that lacked standard deviations were imputed using the correlation coefficient of estimation of 0.96 using the Cochrane's formula. To know the quality of the article, they used the Jadad score which considers how appropriate a random trial is, the blinded outcome, a complete description of loss and the assessment. They also sought out if the jaded score had any effect on the heterogeneity of the outcome.

The researchers used a model known as the random effect now that they had the diversity in the study and population and for the sensitive analysis, they used a fixed effect model. Weight mean difference was calculated for outcomes that were identical in both the vegetarian and non- vegetarian groups. The researchers also had an analysis of the subgroup to know the biased and the correct and important factors in meta-regression. They used the Stata software for all the statistical processes.

In the methods used they obtained 1513 studies. After removing some articles that were not accurate, they only had 73 articles left for the evaluation. Only 12 articles were verified for the final analysis. On the characteristics in the twelve trials, 1151 subjects were used with a baseline of a range of 18 to 82 years. One study focused on the premenopausal ladies while three studies focused on postmenopausal women. There were six studies of overweight people, five of people with type2 of diabetes, and just one study with rheumatoid arthritis patients. In the eight trials used for the vegan diet people, six people used a low quantity of fat. The non-vegetarian design varied and included lipid-lowering, low- fat and weight reduction recipes.

In the weight change, it was noticed that individuals that were assigned to the vegetarian group lost more weight compared to the ones who had to do controlled diets. They observed significant heterogeneity in the change of weight. People who were assigned to the vegan group lost more weight than those who were assigned to the Lacto ovo group. There was a significant weight loss change for the six vegetarian diets that were energy restricted. There was a slight asymmetry in the small and large samples. No publication bias evidence was substantial.

In the meta-analysis conducted with the random trials comparing weight change in individuals having vegetarian diets and the ones in the non- vegetarian diets, the initial one showed a two- kilogram reduction in weight. Weight loss was significant in the vegan individuals compared to the ones who were in the Lacto ovo diet group. There was an observation that the self- reported vegetarian diets and the weight control had some association. Observational studies matched the researcher's findings and had a stronger effect than the randomised controlled trials. A cohort study of 116 people who had a strict vegetarian diet showed a weight loss result than the ones who used a controlled diet.

The weight loss may have been brought about by much consumption of vegetables, grains, and fruits. Vegetables and whole grains have low index values of glycaemic, and fruits have abundant fibre, minerals, antioxidants and phytochemicals. Some studies showed some inverse relationship between weight loss and fibre. Women who had much intake of fruits and vegetables were found to have a low rate of weight gain than those who consumed a small amount of them. In a meta-analysis of a controlled randomised trial of twenty had a clear conclusion that any soluble supplement of fibre did not work well in weight loss although it was not a general conclusion on long term effects.

This was the first study that examined the weight loss effect brought by intake of vegetarian diet and other diets as well. The heterogeneity found in some trials might be because of the energy restriction availability or absence, different designs of study, the intervention study strategy and also different diets of vegetarian. Even though some analysis on subgroups was done, the results were not that much reliable due to the sizes of the subgroups which was small. Although the study showed that vegetarian lost more weight compared to non- vegetarian, some questions remain unanswered. These trials were done on a short period; hence there was not enough information concerning other outcomes that are relevant like the factors of cardiovascular risks and morbidity. This means that more time is needed to explore and know the long -term results of a vegetarian diet on the loss of weight and other outcomes.

In conclusion, weight loss can be achieved by both a vegan and vegetarian diet over a specific time. Much time is needed to know the effect of a vegetarian diet on weight loss and also the risks associated with cardiometabolic.


Work Cited

Huang, Ru-Yi, et al. "Vegetarian diets and weight reduction: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials." Journal of general internal medicine 31.1 (2016): 109-116.