The Effects of Specific Diet in Relation to Aging Essay -- Nutrition

Introduction Every day people make decisions that impact their lives, varying from minuscule to dynamic effects. It is widely accepted that eating a nutritious diet may prevent, delay, or lessen certain age-related diseases. Many individuals choose to partake in a vegetarian lifestyle in hopes that it would lead to a more healthful and longer life. While a vegetarian lifestyle has proven to be generally safe and beneficial for human health, the question I propose is what the difference, if any, is between a vegetarian and omnivorous lifestyle over the adult human lifespan in relation to aging and body function? The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential effects, positive, negative, and neutral, that diet, namely vegetarian based vs. omnivore based, has on aging throughout the adult lifespan. Background To introduce the topic, it is important to know that for the purpose of this paper, the term vegetarian will encompass all types of vegetarianism, including, but not limited to, pescatarianism (abstaining from all beef, pork, poultry, and foul, but still consuming all dairy products, eggs, fish, and sea food) , the most common lacto-ovo-vegetarian (abstaining from eating the meat of all and any animals, including fish and sea food, but still consuming dairy [lacto] products and eggs [ovo]), a stricter vegetarianism, known as vegan (abstaining from all meats, fish, sea food, eggs, dairy, animal products, and in most strict cases white sugar because of the way it is processed), and the strictest form, raw vegan( abstaining from all that a vegan does, and also abstaining from all cooked and â€Å"un-natural† foods). It is also to be noted, that while many choose a vegetarian lifestyle for suspected health benefits, many also ... ...ction to food and society. Belmont, California: Thomson/Wadsworth. pp. 282, 283. ISBN 0-534-52582-2. "Protein in diet". United States National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. 2009. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002467.htm. Davey GK, Spencer EA, Appleby PN, Allen NE, Knox KH, Key TJ (2003). "EPIC-Oxford: lifestyle characteristics and nutrient intakes in a cohort of 33 883 meat-eaters and 31 546 non meat-eaters in the UK". Public Health Nutrition 6 (3): 259–69. doi:10.1079/PHN2002430. PMID 12740075. Standing Committee on the Scientific Evaluation of Dietary Reference Intakes, Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine (1997). Dietary Reference Intakes for Calcium, Phosphorus, Magnesium, Vitamin D and fluoride. Washington DC: The National Academies Press. ISBN 0309064031. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=5776.