Women who follow a vegetarian diet have a higher risk of breaking their hips in later life, a new study suggests.
Researchers said vegetarian diets often have lower intakes of nutrients linked to bone and muscle health after their study found female vegetarians had a 33% increased risk of hip fracture compared to regular meat eaters. The study, which involved more than 26,000 women aged 35-69 from across the UK, assessed the risk of hip fracture among vegetarians, pescatarians – those who eat fish but not meat – and occasional meat eaters compared with regular meat eaters.
After around 20 years, researchers noted 822 hip fractures among the women – around 3% of those involved in the study, which has been published in the journal BMC Medicine. Experts from the University of Leeds found that an elevated risk of hip fracture was found only among vegetarian women compared with women who regularly consumed meat.
