It is very popular among people that vegetarian food can live a long and healthy life. Some people even point out that a monk has a long life, living for over 100 years, so it is good to be a vegetarian. In fact, this is just an example. As far as the current scientific research is concerned, there is not enough evidence to show that vegetarianism is necessarily related to longevity.
Long-term vegetarian nutrition imbalance
Protein, fat, sugar, vitamins, minerals and cellulose are the six nutrients to maintain human health, each of which is very important to the body and indispensable. These nutrients have three main functions: 1. Provide heat energy for human body. 2. Provide human tissues for growth, development or repair. 3. Help the human body to regulate its function.
When vegetarianism almost became a fashion, many experts suggested that vegetarianism would affect health. According to the investigation of monks' life span, it is found that monks' life span is lower than that of ordinary people because of their long-term vegetarianism, low physical resistance and anemia. Some people go on excessive diet or partial eclipse in order to reach the "standard" of modern bodybuilding, which has caused serious harm to health. Scientists have found that long-term abstinence from meat and animal products will make some nutrients needed by the human body not be replenished in time, thus damaging some organs in the human body.
Long-term vegetarianism not only affects people's overall health, but also affects people's sexual function. American nutritionist Anna Marie Gerben pointed out that vegetarianism affects sexual desire. One of her surveys shows that vegetarians have a high proportion of frigidity, premature ejaculation and even erectile dysfunction.
Scientific research has found that animal fat can increase the secretion of sex hormones in the body, while vegetarian food does not contain any meat, which will reduce people's sexual desire. In addition, the vegetarian diet is mostly inhibitory food. For example, sugar, dairy products or eggs replace animal fat, while refined sugar and processed dairy products lose a lot of nutrients, which will lead to sexual or reproductive dysfunction. If you want to live a life without sex, you can turn to vegetarian food.
As we all know, testosterone is an important substance to stimulate sexual desire and maintain sexual desire. Studies have found that people who have insufficient intake of protein are at risk of falling testosterone levels, which will lead to sexual dysfunction, erythropenia and bone damage. People who don't eat meat are especially dangerous, because animal food is the best source of protein with high biological value.
Many trace elements are closely related to human reproductive function, especially zinc. Zinc is a component of many enzymes, and there are more than 100 enzymes containing zinc in human body. It plays an important role in maintaining the normal structure and function of male reproductive system. Zinc deficiency will reduce the number of sperm, affect sexual desire, reduce sexual function, and lead to late maturity and infertility in men. There are several reasons for primary zinc deficiency. First, the zinc content in the diet is too low, for example, the zinc content in cereals and vegetables is low, while the zinc content in seafood is high. Oyster meat is the food with the highest zinc content, and others such as beef, milk, chicken, chicken liver, egg yolk and shellfish. Secondly, the bioavailability of zinc in different foods is very different, and the bioavailability of zinc in meat and seafood is much higher than that in vegetables. In addition, some ingredients in the diet, such as phytic acid, oxalic acid, cellulose, ferrous iron, calcium, copper and cadmium, are inhibitors of zinc absorption, which will interfere with zinc absorption, especially phytic acid.
Vegetarian habits have an impact on sexual function of both men and women, but the impact on men is more serious than that on women. The reason is that male sex hormones will decrease because of long-term vegetarianism.
Clinically, long-term vegetarianism not only affects human sexual function, but also affects fertility. There is a couple in Tianjin who have been married for five years, but they have been unable to have children. They went to the hospital for a physical examination and found nothing unusual. Careful doctors learned during the consultation that they advocate vegetarianism, but they haven't touched any meat for five years and only eat food and vegetables for every meal. The doctor then informed that long-term vegetarianism will affect the secretion of female sex hormones, leading to low reproductive function, and at the same time, it will also cause male sexual dysfunction, reduced testicular spermatogenesis function, and lead to infertility. The couple went vegetarian according to the doctor's advice. Sure enough, they got pregnant soon.
Aging, gray hair, loose teeth, osteoporosis and cardiovascular diseases are all related to insufficient manganese intake. Manganese deficiency not only affects bone development, but also causes bone pain, fatigue, hunchback, fracture and other diseases. Lack of manganese can also lead to dull thinking and ineffective feeling. Because the manganese contained in plant food is difficult to be absorbed by human body, while the manganese content in meat food is less, but it is easy to be used by human body, so eating meat is an important way to absorb manganese. Therefore, the elderly should not simply be vegetarian.
It is also inappropriate for some middle-aged and elderly people to be vegetarian for a long time in order to reduce blood fat. The causes of hyperlipidemia are very complicated, many of which are due to the disorder of blood lipid metabolism, which cannot be explained only by eating too much oil and meat. At the same time, long-term abstinence from animal products is a partial eclipse, which will lead to insufficient intake of protein, lipids, fat-soluble vitamins and some trace elements, leading to malnutrition, decreased immunity and even cancer.
The researchers found that the low-protein diet of the elderly led to an increase in hemoglobin (a sex hormone conjugate), which reduced the effectiveness of testosterone.
A balanced diet is good for health.
Modern nutrition does not advocate people to be vegetarian for a long time, but repeatedly emphasizes that nutrition should be balanced and the proportion of nutrient intake should be reasonable. Nutritional supplement should also follow certain scientific laws, neither malnutrition nor overnutrition. You can't supplement a nutrient just because it is important, which will have adverse consequences. For example, protein is the most important nutrient for human body. Engels once described it as "life is the way of protein's existence", but it is the first nutrient of this kind of life. If you take too much, it will also cause metabolic disorder and lead to poisoning, and even death in severe cases. Protein, not to mention other nutrients. Too much is too late, believe it!
The World Health Organization has a "Victoria Declaration", which puts reasonable nutrition and balanced diet at the top of health. Remind everyone to eat nutrition scientifically and reasonably.