There is a lot of controversy about veganism, and the more you look into the topic, the more confusing it can become. Of the three pillars of veganism – animal rights, sustainability and health – the latter is the most controversially discussed. There are countless studies on health and nutrition, and many of them are in favour of a vegan diet. Yet there are also some that come to the opposite conclusion and warn against an entirely vegan diet.
Does the truth lie somewhere in between? I personally do not think so, but obviously, as a long-term vegan, I might be biased. However, there are practical and logical reasons why research on veganism and health often seems to produce contradicting results.
Behind the science – who funds research?
Research is always conducted with a purpose. While we might like to believe that its sole purpose is to enlighten people and discover the truth about things, the reality is usually far more money-driven. Researchers do not do their work as a charity to humanity. Their work is funded, and rightly so. Everyone needs to make a living, including researchers.
As a consequence, research can never be 100 % neutral and completely open-ended. This is not necessarily a drama, but it is something we should keep in mind when reading the results of studies. For that reason alone, it is always worth looking at who commissioned a study and who financed it.
Even when apparently independent institutions such as universities or clinics are involved, this does not automatically mean that the research is fully independent. These institutions, too, operate within economic structures and have to justify their own decisions, priorities and business models.
A university or clinic in which veganism is not practised, for example for cost-related or structural reasons, is unlikely to publish research that fully supports veganism without reservation. In such cases, controversy can even help to justify existing practices.
A Vegan diet in the broader lifestyle context
There is certainly no global conspiracy against veganism that would further explain why study results are often so contradictory and controversial. Apart from funding, there are other very practical reasons behind this. One major factor is that a vegan diet cannot be isolated from the rest of a person’s lifestyle.
If we simply compare vegans, vegetarians and omnivores in terms of health issues such as allergies, diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension or cancer, we may get some sort of trend. However, it remains relatively easy to produce a counter-study showing the exact opposite, especially if a certain result is desired.
At present, there are no broader studies that investigate such health issues by comparing, for example, vegan smokers with non-vegan smokers, vegans who drink alcohol with vegans who do not, or active vegans with sedentary vegans, and then cross-reference these findings with the same secondary lifestyle factors among vegetarians and omnivores. These are only the most obvious examples. In reality, there are many more factors that influence a person’s health.
Another problem is that vegans, and often vegetarians as well, tend to pay more attention to their overall lifestyle than omnivores. Of course, there are also omnivores, or even self-proclaimed carnivores, who believe that eating animal products is what keeps them healthy and who also remain very active, do not smoke or drink, and maintain a good sleep routine.But the average omnivore, that is, most people who simply live by the idea of “doing a bit of everything”, tends to pay less attention to other factors such as physical activity, sleep, exposure to chemicals, and many other influences on health.
But if you conduct a study comparing vegans and meat eaters, and 90 % of the vegans neither smoke nor drink alcohol whereas only 40 % of the meat eaters abstain from smoking and drinking, how can you be sure that the better health outcomes among the vegans are primarily due to their vegan diet?
No vegans under lab conditions
Not only are there not enough comparison groups to produce truly conclusive results, but it is also impossible to closely follow someone’s daily diet. Most such studies are largely based on self-reports by the participants, especially in the case of long-term studies. In the end, you cannot put humans in a lab for months or years in order to really observe how their diet influences their health.
For that reason alone, we may have to accept that there will probably never be a single, definitive study that settles the debate about veganism and health once and for all. Scientific research can point to trends and correlations, but it rarely delivers absolute certainty. In the end, this also means that individuals have to make their own informed decisions and sometimes simply experiment with what works best for them.
What remains true regardless of scientific controversies, however, is that becoming more conscious about what we eat is always worthwhile. Looking more closely at our diet also inevitably leads to questions about animal suffering, environmental impact and other ethical aspects of food. Everyone can always find things to improve and make small changes or even bigger decisions about.
