It's official! Vegetarians live longer than meat-eaters: study

According to a new study, vegetarians - especially men - have a longer lifespan than those who eat meat.

Researchers from the Loma Linda University in California found that vegetarian Adventist men live to an average of 83.3 years and vegetarian women 85.7 years - 9.5 and 6.1 years, respectively, longer than other Californians, the Huffington Post reported.

In the '70s and '80s, a series of studies from the university, which has tracked tens of thousands of Seventh-day Adventists since 1958, were the first to show that vegetarians live longer than meat eaters.

Seventh-day Adventists have long been known as advocates of a vegetarian diet.

The new research presented at Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' 2012 Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo is halfway into completion and includes 96,000 people from the US and Canada.

Principal investigator Gary E Fraser revealed that the new study found that vegans are, on average, 13 kilogrammes lighter than meat eaters and five units lighter on the Body Mass Index (BMI) scale than meat-eaters.

Vegetarians and vegans are also less insulin resistant than meat-eaters.

Lean people are also more likely to exercise regularly, eat plants, and avoid cigarettes than overweight people, suggesting that numerous factors are boosting the overall health of these participants.

Pesco-vegetarians and semi-vegetarians who limit animal products, but still eat meat once a week or so, have "intermediate protection" against lifestyle diseases, Fraser claimed.

The study whose population is 25 per cent African-American and half vegetarian found that obesity cuts an African-American's life span by 6.2 per cent, and across races, the protective qualities of fat in seniors was not seen.

Previous studies have found past about age 85, people who are obese have a lower risk of dying than normal-weight peers.