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What’s Best, a Vegan or Mediterranean Diet?

Sharon Palmer

Both the vegan and Mediterranean diet are healthful eating patterns that have received a great deal of interest in the nutrition world—a new study explores which diet has better health results.

What diet is best for you—a vegan diet, with its landslide of studies showing health and environmental benefits, or a Mediterranean diet, which has garnered the most research of any diet pattern in the world? There have been hundreds of research studies finding that both Mediterranean and vegan diets, with their emphasis on fruits, vegetables, pulses and whole grains get high marks for their impacts on overall health and longevity, in addition to planetary health. The similarities of the diets include their emphasis on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, pulses, nuts, and seeds. The main differences between the two diets is that the Mediterranean allows for low amounts of red meat, small amounts of chicken, eggs, and dairy, and fish as the primary animal protein, while a vegan diet excludes all of these animal foods. Besides the fact that both of these diets have been shown to improve health and reduce the risks of certain diseases, researchers have been curious to discover how these diets compare in health outcomes.

Researchers conducted a 36-week randomized crossover trial to compare the health outcomes of a Mediterranean versus a low-fat vegan diet, specifically focusing on the changes in body weight and cardiometabolic parameters. In this study, participants were randomly assigned to either a Mediterranean diet or a low-fat vegan diet over the span of 16 weeks. Once the 16-week period was reached, the participants returned to their normal diets for 4 weeks. They went through a second round of a 16-week process diet change, but this time they tried the opposite diet from the first round. After the two rounds were completed, body weight, body composition, lipid concentrations, fat mass, blood pressure, and insulin levels were measured to identify the outcomes associated with each of the diets. The results of this study showed that in comparison to a Mediterranean diet, the consumption of a low-fat, plant-based diet led to a higher reduction in body weight and fat mass, increase in insulin sensitivity, and improvement in blood lipids. However, the Mediterranean diet that had a more positive impact in decreasing overall blood pressure.

Why were there differences in the results of the study? The scientists observed that while the Mediterranean diet improves factors like insulin sensitivity and blood lipids because of a reduction in saturated fat, a low-fat vegan diet accomplished an even greater reduction in saturated fat, as well as cholesterol. It’s also important to note that the traditional Mediterranean diet is not known so much for weight loss as it is for other health benefits like heart health; in contrast a vegan diet has been consistently linked with weight loss due to factors such as very high fiber intake. On the other hand, the blood pressure-lowering effects of monounsaturated fats in the Med diet may be more powerful than the effects of a low-fat vegan diet, which has lower amounts of these fats. While we need more research to compare the effects of these two diets, one thing seems sure: Both the Mediterranean and vegan diets offer impressive health benefits.

Read more about this study at The Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2020.

Learn more about the Mediterranean and vegan diets here:

How to Eat a Healthy, Plant-Based Mediterranean Diet
The Vegetarian Diet and Mediterranean Diet are Both Heart Healthy
Bringing the Mediterranean Diet to Life

5 thoughts on “What’s Best, a Vegan or Mediterranean Diet?

  1. I have read other assessments regarding this study. What amazes me is that nothing I have read discusses possible problems with compliance with either diet (although it seems clear that the vegan diet would be much more difficult to maintain, since entire food groups such as meat and dairy are excluded). After many years of fad diets, I have learned that I need to have a diet that is inclusive of all food groups. I realize that this was a short-term study, but it would have been interesting to see some discussion about overall compliance in other, longer-term studies that have been done.

    • Thanks for this great feedback! Many nutrition studies do not talk about compliance, which would have to be designed into the methodology of the study. However,I don’t believe the Mediterranean and vegan diet are considered fad diets, and they are recognized by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics as diet patterns having health benefits—even the Dietary Guidelines recognizes and recommends these diet patterns. In my mind, a vegan diet does not exclude any food groups, as the USDA allows for legumes, tofu, and nuts to count as protein group (not really called the meat group), and soymilk is allowed to count for a dairy group. More than half the world can’t drink milk, so I think it’s important to keep that in mind.

  2. I would need to see this study replicated by an organization that doesn’t promote a vegan agenda, especially since researchers without a vegan agenda have found just the opposite. I’m not saying they stacked the deckv for their diet, but I do know there’s no way they would ever promote a non-vegan diet and they actively discount and try to discredit studies that have determined a completely meat-free diet isn’t necessary for health.

    • Yes, indeed, it’s important to look at the bias and funding of any study. I think we need a lot more research on this topic to know for sure, however the Adventist Health Studies 2 have compared a variety of plant-based diets in their long term studies, and they did find the vegan diet did better than pescatarian diets for many outcomes. Pescarian and Mediterranean diets have similarities. I agree, many forms of plant-based diets offer benefits!

  3. Hello! Having never spoken about the Mediterranean diet before, thanks for telling me, it was very interesting to read. I have been a vegan for almost 8 years and over these 8 years I realized that a vegan diet is just for me and I just love everything green, everything is fresh and tasty) I sometimes even can just eat some fruit for days in the summer and enjoy it. But I don’t like to call it veganism, I just eat this way and I don’t put myself into any framework and it’s much easier for me to live like that)

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