First They Go After the Red Wine; Now the Steak

You probably read about last week's study showing that moderate drinking did not, I repeat, did not improve health outcomes. The pooled analysis of dozens of studies showed that the slightly reduced heart attack rates that light drinkers enjoy is largely due to the fact that the teetolers in the comparison groups had stopped drinking for health reasons. In other words, these already sick people had more heart attacks anyway. Duh.

Now comes a new study from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Nutrition Reviews that purports to show that vegetarian diets promote weight loss. According to the press release: "Vegetarian populations tend to be slimmer than meat-eaters, and they experience lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other life-threatening conditions linked to overweight and obesity."

Even better, going Vegan will allow you to drop one pound per week no matter how much exercise or calorie-counting you do. The study's authors, Susan Berkow and Neal Barnard, say vegetarians in the 87 studies they reviewed had obesity rates ranging from 0 to 6 percent, far below the general population.

Since I work at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, where a significant number of staff are Vegan, I think I'm in a good position to testify to some confounding factors that may be skewing their claims. People who obsess about eliminating animals and dairy from their diet are far more health conscious than the rest of the general population, which makes them eat less, exercise more and avoid truly heart-stopping foods.

I'd bet my life that if one could conduct a truly objective experiment comparing two populations made up of physically and genetically matched people, both of which exercised regularly and kept their weight within certain bounds but one ate meat and the other was strictly vegan, we'd find very little difference in their heart attack rates.

In fact, I already have made that bet. I drink moderately. I eat meat. And I exercise regularly. My weight is quite normal for a man my size and build (5'10'', 161 pounds). Indeed, my weight is no different today than it was 30 years ago when I was 25 (full disclosure: I've lost 7 pounds since the first of the year despite my meat-eating ways, largely due to a slightly more rigorous exercise regimen).

If this blog stops suddenly, you'll know that the Vegans may be on to something.