By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD

I recently had the opportunity to work with other professionals on a publication aimed at health professionals which discussed vegan and vegetarian diets. Our goals in developing this paper were to provide guidelines on nutrition, to address the environmental benefits of significantly reducing or eliminating animal products, to inform readers about vegan and vegetarian diets during the life cycle and for athletic performance, and to provide an update on use of vegan and vegetarian diets to manage chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Another VRG advisor, Enette Larson-Meyer, PhD, RD, also worked on this paper.

The 30-page paper was published in November 2021 in a professional journal called Nutrients. It was based on an extensive review of the scientific literature and included more than 300 citations. It is an open access paper which means that it can be downloaded and read, with no charge, even if you don’t subscribe to the journal where it appeared.

This paper would be helpful for any health professional, for students planning to go into health professions, and for others who want to read a more in-depth discussion about vegetarian and vegan nutrition.

One of the paper’s conclusions is, “Health professionals who work with vegetarians and those interested in vegetarian diets should be familiar with current research on vegetarian nutrition and be able to provide information so that clients are aware of their nutritional need, sources of nutrients, and any dietary modifications needed to meet their individual situation. “

Readers may want to share this information-rich paper with health care providers in their life. It can be accessed here.

Reference

Craig WJ, Mangels AR, Fresán U, et al. The safe and effective use of plant-based diets with guidelines for health professionals. Nutrients. 2021;13(11):4144.