You seem passionate and interested in the topic. May I ask if you would take a look at the kind-of-new North American Vegetarian Society page to see if you can expand or improve it, thanks. And writing you just reminded me that the chart needs updating from the good additions at the talk page (I should get on that). Randy Kryn (talk) 14:10, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Carl - on my talk page, you said: I have reverted your deletion. 1) I know that MDPI is currently monitored for it's practices. However, it depends on the journal. I have not read that "Nutrients" is an unreliable source. 2) Also, in this case, the study was funded by a public university, so they clearly could have chosen another journal. 3) A lot of nutritional research is currently published in Nutrients that seems legit and conducted by universities. 4) Excluding the journal entirely should go through a due process in Wikipedia and not by lumping it in with MDPI's missteps in the past. Since the 2018 incident the impact factor has only increased (I have added it to the journal's article).

I numbered your points to faciliate our discussion. 1) MDPI predatory practices are well-documented in the article's controversies section. As editors, we need to pay attention to the details of articles published in Nutrients. I for one start with high skepticism, and if I can be convinced of the quality, I allow the source to be used (rarely). 2) I don't think there's a relationship between whether a university facilitated the research, and the quality of journal where it appears. Perhaps the opposite is true: the authors are motivated for publication (a resume for tenure, as an example), and may even pay for publication of a weak review (recruiting authors and having them pay for publication is a common tactic of predatory publishers). If the authors really wanted rigorous review of their article, they would have submitted it to Nature Medicine (as an example) where it wouldn't stand a chance of publication. 3) I can't think of any good nutritional research published in Nutrients. In my opinion - having reviewed and edited numerous Wikipedia articles on nutrition - articles in Nutrients are a red flag warning for poor quality. 4) we have WP:CITEWATCH which does encourage careful review of MDPI sources. In my experience, they are uniformly of poor quality and are unusable as sources for Wikipedia medical and nutrition content.

Thanks for politely raising the issue. Best regards. Zefr (talk) 16:35, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Zefr. Not everything in the Controversies section is a case against MDPI. Some paragraphs even support them. One reason for us having different views may be that most of the articles I've read so far are in line with conventional nutritional knowledge. That said, I have only read systematic reviews and meta-studies in Nutrients. I am planning to include some of these in the future, mainly in plant-based diets, veganism and vegetarianism. I would appreciate it, if you could have a look at them then. Currently I am cross checking the studies with other studies on my list. It will take me some more time to have screened them all. I have about 120+ studies that I am working my way through to improve the aforementioned articles. It's all been a piecemeal approach so far and it looks as no one has ever systematically screened all relevant studies for these three articles. CarlFromVienna (talk) 20:22, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Zefr:. Today I came across this, which finally convinced me that Nutrients is a junk science outlet. Thanks again for your help and the work you do here. CarlFromVienna (talk) 12:06, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Your additions to this article were too promotional, WP:NOTADVOCACY, and were over-sourced, WP:OVERCITE. Try to keep content concise and sources to a minimum of the most recent reviews in good journals. This dietary practice remains under only preliminary research for its possible effects on human health, a topic difficult - if not impossible - to study rigorously due to all the confounding research factors of people on a dietary regimen. If national clinical organizations or major research institutes make recommendations for healthy people or patients with diseases to use a plant-based diet, that would be worthy of describing briefly; WP:MEDSCI. I am unaware of such positions. Zefr (talk) 15:36, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, @Zefr:. We do now know since the 1980 that eating more fruits and vegetables and less saturated fat is healthy. So much so, that most people working in the field are bored to death by it. Clearly it is established knowledge by now, so I have problems to see your point of promotional content. What can be promotional, however, is when people do not differentiate plant-based dietary patterns or diet quality. I have taken utmost care to make clear that 1) only healthy PB eating patterns provide health benefits and 2) there is no need to avoid meat completely. Both is now missing from the article and in my view it now reads kind of more promotional than before. Let's head over to the article and work on the details together. CarlFromVienna (talk) 05:56, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Carl,

You removed my suggestion for a new section in the veganism article expounding how vegans deal with this problem for their ethics, on the ground that talk pages are not for philosophical discussion. I suggest you have a look at some of the innumerable pages where there is such discussion. For example, categorical imperative, a priori  and a posteriori, naturalistic fallacy. There are hundreds!
It is so obvious that ploughing etc slaughters animal life that vegans must have tackled the problem, seeing that they even scruple to eat honey on the rather Marxist grounds that it would be exploiting the workers. As the article sets out their thinking in other respects, surely it would be more complete if it dealt with this too?
Best wishes

Esedowns (talk) 16:57, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Esedowns: Find a WP:RS or drop it. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:42, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

tgeorgescu: What do you want a source for in my suggestion? I don't quite understand. Is it for the loss of animal life caused by agriculture? Esedowns (talk) 23:03, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Esedowns: See WP:NOTESSAY. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please could you just give me an answer written out in prose? What do you want a source for? I am not arguing anything, just trying to see if the article could be improved by filling out its account of the vegan position.Esedowns (talk) 14:37, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Esedowns: It is perhaps veganism's worst problem ever. But Wikipedia won't say so unless reliable sources say so. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:16, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@tgeorgescu: thanks. I'll just have to leave it, then. Esedowns (talk) 05:24, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Esedowns: if you read the article it states that veganism is a about reducing animal suffering when practically possible. Not eating vegetables or cereals is not practically possible. Pulling out every earthworm by hand also isn't. What you are looking for is not veganism but Jainism's doctrine of ahimsa. CarlFromVienna (talk) 05:51, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@CarlFromVienna

Yes, you are quite right. How many vegans realise this, I wonder? There seems to be a sort of trade-off between the food animals like pigs that vegans abstain from and the non-food animals like field mice and frogs which are killed in the production or the extra plant-based food they eat instead of pigs. But I think you have answered me. Esedowns (talk) 17:31, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war. This means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be although other editors disagree. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus, rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Points to note:

1. Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made;
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes and work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. Bon courage (talk) 13:37, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Veganism&diff=1124806026&oldid=1124299380&diffmode=source -- Kreyren (talk) 04:47, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You picked a single reason where there are others as well. Some people are vegan for the animals, some for health, some for the environment. The description before your change was much more open to include all these reasons. CarlFromVienna (talk) 13:22, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You've got the facts wrong, friend. I ask you to withdraw your comment. Please re-read the article by Krittanawong et al, which has this conclusion in its abstract: "Our analysis suggests that higher consumption of eggs (more than 1 egg/day) was not associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but was associated with a significant reduction in risk of coronary artery disease." See: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0002934320305490 sbelknap (talk) 22:10, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I will look into this, maybe I clicked on the wrong link? CarlFromVienna (talk) 07:09, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You need to disclose your vegan POV on your talk-page World Carnivore Tribe (talk) 11:28, 27 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I authored the article plant-based diet that clearly states that you can eat animal products and be very healthy. If anything that is probably a very bad promotion of veganism. CarlFromVienna (talk) 12:48, 27 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I know who that user is (he admitted it even on his talk-page), a sock of JustANameInUse. The same user has used many IPs. He was on the Ancel Keys article trying to remove well-sourced content. He has been abusing users and socking so he is not innocent but I would have to agree that his original account was incorrectly cited as a sock of Zalgo. It's irrelevant anyway because his original account was blocked for disruption "Clearly not here to build an encyclopedia" not socking. This user will likely be back on other accounts and IPs. Similar to Zalgo he has been doing it for years. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:21, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that a Wikipedia article is due on the "Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Vegetarian Diets" because those position papers have a long history going back to the 1980s, I am not doing it now but I will write the article. I am not sure if you were aware but the 2015 position paper was retracted [1], [2]. That paper co-written by Diana Cullum-Dugan contained many errors, especially from what I could see about iron. In 2016 after that paper was retracted a new paper was published [3] by Vesanto Melina, Winston Craig and Susan M. Levin. The paper claims the "position is in effect until December 31, 2021" [4]. It would be interesting to read the new position paper. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:13, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just out of interest you might want to compare the 2015 position paper [5] which contained many mistakes to the 2016 paper [6]. If you look at the 2015 paper it had many reviewers and they are different to the 2016 position paper. One odd reviewer for the 2016 paper is the Bragg Health Foundation (based on Paul Bragg). This is completely unreliable, they promote and try and sell all kinds of pseudoscience in regard to their products. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:33, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I read the 2015 and 2016 position side-by-side. Thanks for sharing the links. The 2016 position has a higher information density, from what I see. However, if someone asked me which of the two had been retracted, I am not sure if I could come up with the right answer. At least, from browsing through this, I don't see any omissions in the 2015. I am looking forward to your article and the "new" 2023 position. CarlFromVienna (talk)

I managed to find the 2003 ADA papers [7], [8]. The one I can't get access to is the 1988 paper [9]. If you know anyone who has that or you have it, drop me a link or email. Psychologist Guy (talk) 15:37, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

An error I found in the 2015 retracted paper was "Generally, because iron intake among vegetarian men and postmenopausal women is higher than the Institute of Medicine’s recommendation, iron deficiency and depletion of iron stores are almost never noted among these vegetarians". In the 2016 paper this was changed to "Vegetarians generally consume as much iron as, or slightly more than, omnivores. Despite having similar iron intakes, the iron stores of vegetarians are typically below those of nonvegetarians". Psychologist Guy (talk) 15:41, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch. If I remember correctly quite a few studies show that iron intake among vegans is even higher that in vegetarians and omnivores. That‘s because they eat a lot of whole grains and legumes. But it‘s not heme-iron, so stores will be lower, because the body can control the amount of non-heme iron that it „wants“ to absorb much better. That said, there have always been and will be white bread vegans that run iron deficient. Whole grains are an excellent source of iron and Zefr made a mistake to delete the oat meal from vegan nutrition, saying oat meal would not be a good source. But I will not challenge him on that as he’s right that Wikipedia is not a how-to.CarlFromVienna (talk) 16:09, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am not a physiologist so just had to look up some interesting stuff about this topic. The RDI for iron is 8 mg for men and 18 mg per day for women. In the UK it is 8.7mg for men and 14.8mg for women. It is unrealistic that a vegan female is going to consume 18mg of iron in a single day because only only 2–20% of nonheme iron is absorbed. There is also the issue of inhibitors of iron absorption such as calcium, polyphenols and phytates [10].

My understanding is that only 1mg of iron a day is actually absorbed by the body [11]. 600 to 1000 mg can be stored in the body by a typical adult male that can last a few years. Around 1mg-1.2mg is also lost daily from many different factors such as blood loss and to a lesser extent sweat and tears. In regard to heme iron, more than 95% of functional iron in the human body is in the form of heme iron [12] (I don't trust the journal Nutrients, but I am sure that figure is correct). When you dive into all of this, I can see why concerns have been raised about vegan diets and iron levels because vegans only consume non-heme iron which has poorer bioavailability. I also read about some interesting facts in regard to how iron recycles itself in the body [13]. We have a Wikipedia on this Human iron metabolism.

Just my opinion but if we weigh everything up, I am not convinced the RDI can be met for iron on a vegan diet without a supplement or fortified foods. I have seen that some of those breakfast cereals are fortified with iron.

In the ADA 2016 paper (I will call it ADA but it is now the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics) it says "We now know that individuals can adapt and absorb non-heme iron more effectively... Individuals are able to adapt to low intakes of iron over time and can reduce iron losses". This isn't good science in my opinion because these statements are not supported by strong sourcing. If you look at the study they cited (source 24) to prove the latter line, it was an 8 week study on lacto-ovo vegetarians [14] (full paper [15] with 21 females, a very biased small sample to making such a bold statement for. The study had nothing to do with vegan diets, secondly the conclusion was "an associated decrease in fecal ferritin excretion, suggesting partial physiologic adaptation to increase the efficiency of iron absorption". This is an 8 week study with a speculative conclusion about fecal ferritin losses, yet the ADA authors made a bold statement that individuals can adapt to low intakes of iron over time.

I can see why anti-vegans do not trust the ADA papers. My background is not in physiology or dietetics (I am a historian) but even I can see the mistakes in these papers. They are finding small sample studies then making very bold statements. The other line "We now know that individuals can adapt and absorb non-heme iron more effectively" is sourced to this paper [16]. Again, I do not think that statement matches what the paper found. Similar to the other paper it found that individuals that absorb more heme-iron in their diets seem to lose less fecal ferritin. Again, this paper was not on vegan diets. I am no expert on any of this but I think you will agree this is bad science by making very bold statements from some limited studies from around the year 2000. My suggestion would be that some of these results might be explained because vegetarians consume a lot of dairy products with calcium. We know that calcium inhibits iron.

When I went on pubmed and clicked on that previous paper, another paper came up that seemed to come to a different conclusion [17]. I don't have time to go through the entire ADA paper reference by reference (I don't think anyone has actually done that openly and posted their findings), but that was just an example of just two lines, I am sure I could find more. For me, it is a case of using biased studies, cherry-picking, citing limited studies with small samples then making very bold statements. Both statements I just cited, I am not saying they are false (they may or may not be), I looked and there are some studies on adaptation in iron metabolism but again these are limited studies. I do not think we can make very bold statements without good science, certainly not about reducing iron losses, the way evidence-based medicine works is not just on a few limited studies. I think the ADA would have done better to leave those statements out. Vegans are repeatedly citing the ADA paper but those studies on iron were not on vegans and that is just one example. Psychologist Guy (talk) 02:32, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The RDI is already based on the assumption that not all of this comes from heme-iron. In fact the average amount of non-heme iron in the diet is 90%. The German Society for Nutrition recommends 10mg for men an 15mg for women. It also recommends 300g of meat for people with low calorie needs and 600g for people with high calorie needs per week. Let's assume 100g of meat contain 1.5mg of iron. That would be an extra iron "boost" of 4,5mg iron per week. Remember, that is what a very conservative nutritional society recommends. Thus, the only scientific thing you are allowed to think is that vegans need a 4.5mg iron supplement per week.

I look at it this way: If you eat a 2500 kcal diet and 20% of the calories come from empty calories like sugar and oils, you have 2000 kcal to cover with whole grains and legumes (for simplicity, let's not count the calories form veggies and fruits). You need to eat ~500g of whole grains and legumes per day to reach 2000kcal. With an average of 5mg iron per 100g for whole grains / legumes you would get 25mg of iron. Q.E.D. :-) CarlFromVienna (talk) 07:16, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info you are right [18] heme iron only contributes to 10–15% of dietary iron intake. I think a real issue is that studies of iron and vegan diets are lacking, in the ADA paper they are looking at vegetarians, not vegans. On the vegan nutrition article talk-page I found a systematic review, it would be interesting if the review covered vegan studies, I think it did but I do not have full access.

Let's just say you are a vegan male and you need 8mg [19] (its slightly higher where I am) of iron per day as the recommended intake. A cup of cooked oats will give around 1.2 mg of iron which is 12% of the RDI. A bowl will be a bit more than that, but will not be over 20%. Because of phytates in oats they are not a good source of iron because it inhibits the absorption of non-haem iron [20], I guess you could add some vitamin c fruits foods to the bowl or some orange juice. I don't have the exact figures. But let's just say that is your meal then you are getting less than let's say 12% of iron in a single large meal. I understand a nice bowl of oatmeal is pleasurable now and again but it cannot be relied upon to offer iron. Now if you go about the day and have lunch with beans or other legumes you might get 4.5mg from 1 cup of lima beans or soy beans. It's just all hard work, you need to be eating cups of the stuff all day long. In short, no I would not rely on wholegrains and legumes for iron but white beans are a good source.

You may know more than me about all of this, I am interested in knowing where you read that wholegrains are a good source of iron. They seem to be (from my reading) a poor source of iron unless they are fortified breakfast cereals. Two websites list the best sources of iron for vegans and vegetarians [21] [22] as dried apricots, white beans, tofu, blacktrap mollasses, boiled swiss chard, white mushrooms etc. I think eating these foods and taking a little supplement will do the trick if you are vegan I am not sure how wholegrains help with calcium, iron or anything for that matter but are a good binder or filler and source of fiber. Psychologist Guy (talk) 02:31, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think the confusion starts when don't take calories into account. It's also unrealistic that people eat only 40g of whole grains for breakfast to meat their caloric needs (in fact, 40g is what my kids, 2 and 5 eat for breakfast). A cup of cooked oat meal is 150kcal. That't not even close to the 700 kcal you should eat every meal to reach the WHO minimum of 2000 kcal you'll need per day.

You have to base your calculations on the calories that food provides. And when you look at it this way, you will end up seeing that the majority of calories on a traditional plant-based diet will come from whole grains.

For breakfast eat 90g of oat meal or müsli with 250ml of soy milk and you'll already have 4,5mg of iron. Then eat 140g of whole grain pasta for lunch and that's another 5mg. Eat 100g of buckwheat for diner and add 200g cooked beans. 7mg of iron. That's already 16,5mg of iron for this day and there's a lot of calories left to cover.

You don't have to calculate the absorption rate. Because, like I said, the RDI already takes into account that 90% of iron comes in the form of non heme iron. The lower absorption rate is already factored into the RDI. (With exception of the NAS, that recommends higher iron consumption. The German Society for Nutrition does not see that need.)

People have been eating like this for thousands of years. White bread became common only in the 1920ies. Same with white rice. Whole grains and beans provided the majority of calories for humans for thousands of years and as such also the majority of iron. CarlFromVienna (talk) 07:38, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To exploit something non-human means to make productive use of it. Animals and animal products can be exploited. Can I re-add the sentence with these sources showing both sides of the debate? https://www.veganfoodandliving.com/features/can-vegans-eat-eggs-from-backyard-hens https://www.livekindly.com/honey-debate-vegan-not-vegan/ Countryboy603 (talk) 15:04, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

These are blog posts and websites only. It would need academic sources to show its relevance. I think it is way to detailed for a general article about veganism. I am not a native speaker but I would drink a glass of milk and my English teacher would have scolded me if I‘d „use a glass of milk“ even more so if I „exploit“ it. CarlFromVienna (talk) 16:30, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I just came across this paper, [23] you may find it amusing. Psychologist Guy (talk) 19:39, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Many woke shit could be improved by balancing it with a little history. For example, isn't it extreme that we shall not beat our children? Humans have beaten children for thousands of years. So for balance one might suggest that beating them from time to time is to err on the side of caution. CarlFromVienna (talk) 10:07, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One of the authors of that paper was Loren Cordain of paleo fad diet fame, but even he seems to be now promoting mostly plant-based. What's interesting to me is that Cordain is in such bad health that he has threatened people with lawsuits if anyone uploads a recent photograph of him. If you do a search online every photograph of him in the last 5 years has been deleted. Only photographs or videos of him exist 8-10 years ago, everything else has been deleted that contains any photographic or video of him. Unfortunately I didn't get to save it, it's been taken down now but there was an interview with Cordain on YouTube that was quickly taken down last year. Cordain literally has no neck left and it is just fat connecting his head to his body. I have not seen anything quite like it before, it's quite disturbing. The guy is obviously very ill yet spends his time writing papers claiming vegans and vegetarians are ill. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:03, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the health risk diagram they are saying a vegan diet increases risk of hair loss because the diet is low in zinc, iron and protein. I have not seen any strong evidence of vegan diets increasing hair loss in the medical literature, the mechanism is said to be iron deficiency. They only linked to one paper on hair loss, it is this one but it does not mention veganism or vegetarianism [24], there is a good table at the end that paper but it doesn't seem to entirely support the authors of the other paper. One paper that did briefly mention hair loss, veganism and iron deficiency was this review paper [25] Psychologist Guy (talk) 22:53, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On an unrelated note, this is a good review paper I have been reading recently [26] Psychologist Guy (talk) 22:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In Germany we had the anti-vegan Udo Pollmer. He was quite popular during the early 2000s. A lot of the Germany Wikipedia articles on nutrition were based on his views until I updated them with MEDRS sources. Someone made this funny meme of him reading Udo Pollmer, enemy of vegan nutrition and author of fitness guidebooks". He's now a anti-vaxxer and most media outlets ignore him. CarlFromVienna (talk) 05:49, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Udo Pollmer has a wiki page on the German Wikipedia, I just translated it and read through it, seems he is promoting a lot of nonsense about soy. He probably would qualify for an article here. You might know more German vegan activists, there is a category here [27] that I created that needs expanding. Attila Hildmann is an interesting character. Psychologist Guy (talk) 15:22, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Friedrich Mülln article has just been created, I have not heard of the organization before. Psychologist Guy (talk) 20:02, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is a new study on processed red meat and bowel cancer described here on the World Cancer Research Fund website [28]

"The study conducted in Germany., calculated the impact over a 30-year period (2020-2050). It showed that if processed meat was completely removed from the diet, this would significantly reduce the risk of developing bowel cancer – with 6,000 cases prevented among men and 2,500 among women per year.

The study also found that almost 220,000 cases of bowel cancer could be prevented between 2020 and 2050 if processed meat was taken out of diets completely."

I have tried to find the study but cannot find it, do you know anything about it? Psychologist Guy (talk) 11:47, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This year, these were also published [29], [30], [31], [32] they are primary papers so cannot be cited on Wikipedia but contain some interesting information. I would like to read the German study if it has been published. Psychologist Guy (talk) 11:48, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think I found the German study. It's published in Nutrients. I have seen a lot of high profile research published in MDPI and my impression is that the negative views about MDPI we hold here in Wikipedia are not shared in the academic world. CarlFromVienna (talk) 09:08, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link. MDPI do occasionally publish some good papers in Nutrients but many papers in that journal are not high-quality. The same with Frontiers Media. Here is a good paper by them [33] which supports other recent findings in mainstream journals [34]. The problem is these are too few compared to all the other garbage they publish. Psychologist Guy (talk) 00:47, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The American Heart Association gave the vegan diet a 78% score of how they align with their 2021 Dietary Guidance [35]. The Nordic diet scored the highest. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:53, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, sorry for the late reply. I was thinking if we should/can use this information for the article and if this information is useful for the reader. After all, if you hear something like "80% compliant" what can you make of it? Most people have very limited nutritional knowledge and it would be a wild guess for them what foods fall into the 80% and what into the 20%. Even for me, I couldn't say it for certain. I am guessing fish is on the table? CarlFromVienna (talk) 07:16, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I need to do more research on it. I will be creating the Nordic diet article at some point, it looks similar to the Mediterranean diet but with more fish. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:36, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[36], [37] This has just been published, it is the first systematic review that has looked at apolipoprotein B levels in vegans and vegetarians. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:36, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I came across this, too. Nothing really new, we know all this from observational studies. Now we have a meta study on RCTs. Could be added to some articles, though. Will do so next week, when I‘m back from holiday. CarlFromVienna (talk) 06:30, 4 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hey,

I have been making some improvements on the whole grains Wikipedia article. There is a strong consensus that whole grains can reduce risk of bowel cancer and lower risk of total cancer mortality. I have seen data suggesting that dietary fibre decreases prostate cancer risk, for example [38], [39] but the data is not always consistent. However, an interesting and unexpected finding I have found in several reviews is that total whole grain consumption increases prostate cancer risk.

This finding was found in a 2019 review [40]. Unfortunately I do not have access to it. There is a summary of that review here in another systematic review:

"Three meta-analyses have been published on the association between whole grain intake and risk of prostate cancer, including 2 categorical analyses and 1 dose-response analysis. In contrast to the site-specific cancers discussed above, none of the meta-analyses indicated a benefit for whole grain intake. In fact, one of the meta-analyses indicated a 10% higher risk of prostate cancer when comparing highest vs. lowest intake groups". [41]

Interestingly that review also found "The only cancer for which whole grain intake was not associated with lower risk was prostate cancer".

Another review found no protect effect [42].

If you look at the latest umbrella review on whole grains and cancer risk they found that whole grains decrease risk of bowel cancer but increase prostate cancer risk [43].

I would have suspected that oats offer a protect effect against prostate cancer, but this doesn't appear to be the case:

"The relationship between intake of specific whole-grain products, including oatmeal, and prostate cancer was investigated among 26,691 men (50–64 years) who participated in the Danish diet, Cancer and Health prospective cohort study. During a median 12.4-year follow up, 1081 prostate cancer cases were identified. Overall, no association between oatmeal intake and prostate cancer risk was observed as well as with total intake of whole-grain products. Additionally, 2268 men (age: 67–86 years) included in the AGES-Reykjavik cohort study reported their food habits for early, middle and current life using validated FFQ. The data set indicated that the intake of oat both in adolescence or midlife did not exert a protective effect on prostate cancer risk." [44], also mentioned in this review [45] how oats have no effect on prostate cancer.

A problem with this type of research which you might point out is how whole grains are defined but there is a pattern here in the reviews. I would be interested in knowing your thoughts about this. This has not been reported in the plant-based community. I am in contact with a lot of dietitians so I may send out an email. Psychologist Guy (talk) 12:16, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is a link to the 2020 umbrella review so you can read it in full [46]. In regard to the increased risk of prostate cancer, one explanation has been problems with defining whole grains as some studies have not differentiated whole grains from refined grains. Something interesting about all this is that I have gone back to 2009, here is a review [47] "Increased risk of PC was associated with the highest tertile of protein (OR = 1.99; 95% CI = 1.05-3.79) and daily servings of grains (OR = 1.99; 95% CI = 1.23-3.22) with significant linear trends". The increase of prostate cancer risk and grains has been in the medical literature for over 14 years reported in at least 5 reviews.

Two more studies I found cooked whole grain breakfast cereals such as oatmeal increased pancreatic cancer risk [48], this review of case control studies found "refined-grain bread intake was associated with a decrease in risk (OR = 0.65 for 4th quartile), whereas whole-grain breakfast cereals were associated with a higher risk for prostate cancer." [49]. An explanation has been proposed to explain such findings is the PSA test, for example this review notes "these associations disappeared, or were attenuated, after restricting the data to men whose prostate cancers were PSA detected" [50]. Psychologist Guy (talk) 16:58, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, sorry for the late reply, I was on holidays the last two weeks. Thanks for the detailed summary. Reading through it half way, I was pretty sure that the solution to this riddle is the PSA testing. It's a pity that you came across this solution in your last sentence and took away my punchline :) Anyways, I think the explanation is that people who consume more whole grains are more health conscious and have their PSA levels checked. Prostate cancer is a very slow growing cancer and one of the strategies is to "take it with you into your grave", meaning you usually die of something else before PC kills you. People who are not health concious (=eat little whole grains) may have PC as well, but it is not registered because they never care to have their PSA checked. CarlFromVienna (talk) 08:33, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]