What is interesting about Seventh-day Adventists, aside from being a slightly different protestant denomination, is that they preach a very strong health message -- it's not like don't do these things and you'll go to hell, they don't actually believe in a literal hell anyway, it's closer to "The body is the Temple of God so you should take care of it".
Anyway, I digress. Adventists are by and large vegan or vegetarian (even after leaving the church I grew up in I'm still vegetarian), they don't drink and they don't smoke. They live on average a decade longer.
There are many factors that can lead to longer life and longer quality of life, as evidenced by other bluezones, but these are relatively easy changes that you can make to your life that will have a positive impact.
Hell you don't even have to be fully vegan/vegetarian to get the benefits. Just swap out a bunch of meals that would otherwise have meat with vegetarian alternatives. Have a steak once a month vs once a week (etc).
Note: My father is a retired Adventist pastor in Australia. I am no longer religious but was within the Adventist church from 0 to 22ish.
- [0]: https://www.bluezones.com/explorations/loma-linda-california/
- [1]: https://llu.edu/From another meta analysis which talks about this more directly:
>Nevertheless, several RCTs have examined the effect of vegetarian diets on intermediate risk factors of cardiovascular diseases (Table 1). In a meta-analysis of RCTs, Wang et al. (22) found vegetarian diets to significantly lower blood concentrations of total, LDL, HDL, and non-HDL cholesterol relative to a range of omnivorous control diets. Other meta-analyses have found vegetarian diets to lower blood pressure, enhance weight loss, and improve glycemic control to greater extent than omnivorous comparison diets (23-25). Taken together, the beneficial effects of such diets on established proximal determinants of cardiovascular diseases found in RCTs, and their inverse associations with hard cardiovascular endpoints found in prospective cohort studies provide strong support for the adoption of healthful plant-based diets for cardiovascular disease prevention
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/am/pii/S105017...
India and Hong Kong have very different levels of income. Comparing the two is rather misleading when that's going to affect things like access to healthcare
https://www.youtube.com/live/LSIyg_Z_ye4?si=O5uMFqligFcuPS8m
A high ldl over the age of 60 is associated with a lower all cause mortality.
And you are kinda right, having a higher income means you can afford more red meat and live longer.
Here is the study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33293274/
A ldl of 140 mg/dL had a overall lower all cause mortality than those with a ldl of 100 or below. Doctors will prescribe a statin at 130.
Good look having a ldl of 140 on a vegan diet. It's not happening.
If you are going to ignore my scientific studies then there is no use continuing this conversation.
Again, this doesn't negate the research on "diet X", but it does make coming to a conclusion more complicated.
Key word here, appears to be.
Upon deeper study, from what I have read, people who transition to vegan on average start having health problems related to the diet at an average of 5 years into the diet.
Note, a vegan diet is very different than a person who at least will still consume eggs or drink milk, etc.
Self-reporting may also be a major issue here as well, as it's possible that someone who is doing something for ethical reasons may put their cause above the ethics of being honest or lying; and metrics for health for the vast majority of people, especially if simply observational studies, aren't adequately or thoroughly gathered in the vast majority of cases; and especially long-term and qualitative comparisons on quality of life haven't been done yet - so the "appears" to be healthier could simply be a person feeling better because of feeling good for the ethics of it, no?
Re: "Therefore, claims that plant-based diets are just healthier because they don't ever burn their burger or put sauce on their bun, feels incorrect to me."
That's a straw man argument, I didn't make that claim.
There are proteins in meat that turn into carcinogens when burnt - I don't know if that's the case with whatever the plant-based "burgers" / patties consist of, if they turn into carcinogens from being burnt.
There are more counter-arguments to other things you state but I don't have time at the moment, e.g. your food examples of what vegans may it, they may also eat far less food than the average meat eater - which provides less food-energy for potential cancers, where it's known that lower calorie intake over a lifetime appears to also be a factor for life expectancy.
E.g. "The researchers found that people who cut their calories slowed the pace of their aging by 2% to 3%, compared to people who were on a normal diet. That translates, Belsky said, to a 10% to 15% reduction in the likelihood of dying early." - first google result for me, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/calorie-restricte....
It's one of these complex topics that no one has yet organized into a proper-complete distribution of arguments and counter-arguments, to lead towards designing adequate clinical trials to get definitive-scientifically derived answers - and that aren't perverted by influences of industrial complexes.