Vegetarian Diet May Cut Heart Disease Risk

By Peter Russell
WebMD Health News

Jan. 31, 2013 -- The risk of hospitalization or death from heart disease is almost a third lower in vegetarians than in people who eat meat and fish, according to a new study.

Researchers from the University of Oxford in England say the health benefits of not eating meat likely stem from having lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

But heart experts caution that following a vegetarian diet is unlikely to be enough to prevent heart disease.

Heart disease is the largest cause of death in developed countries.

The study looked at 44,561 men and women living in England and Scotland who were enrolled during the 1990s in a separate Oxford study looking at links between cancer and nutrition.

Researchers used this database because of the unusually high number of vegetarians enlisted: 34% of the people.

All the people were asked about their health and lifestyles when they joined. This included questions about diet and exercise, as well as other factors affecting health such as smoking and drinking alcohol. Almost 20,000 participants also had their blood pressures recorded and gave blood samples for cholesterol testing.

The volunteers were tracked until 2009. During that time, researchers recorded 1,066 people with heart disease and 169 deaths from heart disease.

The researchers found that vegetarians had a 32% lower risk of developing heart disease than those who ate fish and meat. They did not differentiate between red and white meat, nor did they track how much meat was eaten.

"We didn't look at the specific components of the vegetarian diet that might contribute to the lower risk of heart disease in this study, but because the vegetarians have lower blood cholesterol, it is probably because they have a lower intake of saturated fat and a higher intake of polyunsaturated fat,” says Francesca Crowe, who led the study.

Crowe says the vegetarians also ate more fruits, vegetables, and fiber, which might have contributed to their lower risk of heart disease.

The researchers say lower blood pressure among the vegetarians is likely to be an important factor.

Additionally, vegetarians typically had a lower body mass index (BMI) and fewer cases of diabetes (although these were not found to significantly affect the results). If the results are adjusted to exclude the effects of BMI, vegetarians are 28% less likely to develop heart disease, the researchers say.

The study appears in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

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9 Ways to Wean a Child Off Thumb Sucking

Your preschooler won't stop sucking his thumb? Help your child kick the habit for good.

Kara Angelone's 3-year-old daughter Addie was a thumb-sucker from day one -- literally. Tucked away in her baby book is an ultrasound image of Addie sucking her thumb in the womb. Now, three years later, she's still not ready to let it go.

"It makes her feel safe and comfortable," Angelone says. "I can tell it helps soothe her because, whenever she feels stressed, in goes the thumb and she calms down in a second."

But should a 3-year-old still be sucking her thumb? Experts in psychology, pediatrics, and pediatric dentistry say there are things parents can do to help their children move past thumb or finger sucking. 

"Sucking is very natural for babies," pediatrician Robert Anderson says. "It's very common for them to use their thumbs or fingers as part of their routine to find comfort and to soothe themselves."

Within the first few months of life, or even sooner, a baby can become a thumb or finger sucker as a way to fall asleep, to calm down, or to just feel good, Anderson says.

At this stage, not only is thumb or finger sucking common, it is considered harmless in terms of a child's growth and speech development. The questions most parents ask themselves, however, is how long should it go on? Should a child still suck her thumb when she is ready for preschool?

"Usually, a child who is in the 2- to 4-year range will start to develop other coping skills beyond thumb or finger sucking, such as language development," says pediatric dentist Mary Hayes.

Hayes says these coping skills replace the need for a child to suck on a thumb or finger. But for some kids, thumb sucking or finger sucking is harder to kick, which could lead to problems for their growing mouths.

"We used to think that as long as a child stopped sucking by the time they developed their permanent teeth there would be minimal impact on the mouth and jaw," Hayes says. "Now, research shows that thumb or finger sucking can have an impact even at a younger age -- as young as 2 to 4 years old."

Hayes, a diplomate and fellow of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, says that the sucking puts pressure on the sides of the upper jaw and the soft tissue on the roof of the mouth. As a result, the upper jaw can narrow, causing the teeth to not meet properly from the top to the bottom. Although this can be fixed with braces, it can also cause speech problems such as a lisp that may need to be corrected in therapy.

The long-term effects of thumb or finger sucking don't stop there. If a child has a cross-bite, a condition in which the upper and lower teeth don't meet properly, it can make it worse. A "thumb hole" in the roof of the mouth, which comes from sucking, can cause the teeth in the back of the mouth to take on the brunt of chewing. This causes an imbalance across the teeth and affects the structure of the mouth and jaw as they are growing with the child.

"The trick is to work with the child to lessen her dependency on thumb sucking or finger sucking before the coping skill turns into a habit," Hayes says.

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Deciding Between Work and Home After Your Baby's Born

Parenthood brings endless choices. How to navigate your career may be one of toughest.Reviewed by Melinda Ratini, DO, MS

How do you decide between going back to work and staying at home after the baby is born? Jamie Principe, a 38-year-old mother of two who lives in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., has done both. When her girls, now 4 and 5, were younger, she worked outside the home as an architect. Then, she made the surprisingly smooth and easy transition of becoming a stay-at-home mom.

"I left my job not with the commitment to be a stay-at-home mom," Principe says. "I left because the nature of my job had changed and was no longer beneficial to me professionally. At the same time, my long-time nanny's breast cancer had come back. The thought of searching for new childcare and hunting for a job both while still working and trying to be a mother to my kids was more than I could handle. So since my family could manage financially with one income, I decided to make the break."

And she loved it. "I was surprised at how much I loved being home," Principe says. "Having more time to myself. Enjoying mundane tasks. Catching up with friends. But most of all, being there for my kids." She had found it nice in some ways to "outsource" the laborious and often dull routine of caring for small children. "But now that the kids are older," she says, "I feel my presence at home when their school or camp day is over is much more meaningful and important to both me and them."

Still, Principe misses the professional interaction and stimulation she once knew.

To work or not to work outside the home is a dilemma many new moms face. And like Principe, many are surprised at how they feel.

Family psychoanalyst Jenny Stuart says, "You have to leave as many options open as possible through pregnancy and the first year of a first child's life." Stuart says it's difficult to know how you will feel when you become a mother. "Some women who expect to love it are bored and angry and want to work," she says. "Others are utterly taken by surprise by how much they want to stay home."

Stuart advises moms-to-be to not make any major decisions while they are expecting. She also says it's important to remember there is no right answer. "The decision depends very much on the psychology of the woman making it," she says, "and on what types of support networks she has."

Young children do need steady contact with predictable caregivers. "I think they need as much contact as possible with their own parents," Stuart says. "But a very good day care can be a good complement to what a mother or pair of parents can do on their own. So it's not the case that mothers of young children must not work. But they do have to keep in mind the child's actual needs."

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