Uh, he found the exact opposite...

Quote: "Somewhat surprisingly, he also found that milk abstainers had shorter telomeres than adults who consumed low-fat milk."

This is probably BS, another example of "correlation is not causation". Vegans most likely live longer because they don't eat horribly unhealthy foods like average people, and are much more conscious about eating healthy foods and having healthy lifestyle habits. They could do the exact same with meat, fish, dairy, etc. and probably get the same result.

The simple fact is that most people have unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits. So if you isolate one group that does much better on these because of their focus on healthiness, then of course they're going to be healthier and live longer on average. It doesn't mean than their particular food choices are optimal or necessary.

To counter your point, just look at Japan. It has the highest average life expectancy IIRC, yet vegetarianism there is pretty much non-existent, to the point where vegetarians (and especially vegans) who try to vacation there have a very difficult time. Meat and especially fish are huge parts of the diet.

The study is not causal, you can't say that no-milk is good for longevity, just that it's associated with it. Switching to no milk or low fat milk won't necessarily help you live longer because it could just as easily be other dietary choices.

These kinds of studies are worse than doing nothing because they lead people to believe that one small change could be the difference in your length of life when all they do is observe correlations. Hell, the guy even said he could easily argue for any conclusion about dairy that was asked of him!

India has the highest percentage of vegetarians of any country (at 38% of the population), yet they rank 128th out of 185 countries in life expectancy. Meanwhile, you look at the top 10 countries for life expectancy, and there's plenty of meat in the diet, including Hong Kong, who eat more fish and beef than Americans do, and Iceland, who consume at least 200 pounds of fish a year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...

Are you accounting for lead poisoning or mercury poisoning which seems common.

A quick quality check is Tamil Nadu v Karnataka (two neighbouring Indian states that are very similar).

Tamil Nadu (3% vegetarianism) - 70 years

Karnataka (21% vegetarianism) - 68.8 years

Doesn't look like I'd look there for life extension.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_states_by_life_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country#India

sure, but diet doesn't matter if you die because of an infection due to inadequate medical care.

Sadly, it isn't:

> Somewhat surprisingly, he also found that milk abstainers had shorter telomeres than adults who consumed low-fat milk.

OTOH, I imagine this is probably bunk, as sadly was the study with the 10 years figure.

(I do think that being vegetarian or vegan is probably healthier than being a meat-eater, though).

I wonder, though, how much of both of these are sort of "related group" effects.

That is, the sort of people that drink 1% milk, or have a healthy diet, also have a lot of other healthy habits.