ABSTRACT

I. Introduction ........................................................................................ 34 II. Vegetarianism and Coronary Risk Factors ....................................... 35

A. Established Risk Factors.............................................................. 35 1. Lipids and Lipoproteins........................................................ 35 2. Hypertension......................................................................... 37 3. Hemostatic Factors................................................................ 38 4. Glucose Intolerance and Insulin Resistance....................... 38 5. Obesity................................................................................... 39 6. Smoking................................................................................. 40 7. Alcohol .................................................................................. 40 8. Exercise.................................................................................. 41

B. Possible Risk Factors................................................................... 41 1. Homocysteine........................................................................ 41 2. Antioxidants........................................................................... 42 3. n-3 Fatty Acids ...................................................................... 42

III. Vegetarianism and Coronary Heart Disease .................................... 43 A. Observational Studies.................................................................. 43

B. Intervention Trial of a Low-Fat Vegetarian Diet....................... 45 C. Foods, Nutrients, Vegetarianism and Coronary Heart Disease 45

IV. Topics Requiring More Research...................................................... 46 A. Coronary Heart Disease in Vegans ............................................ 46 B. Coronary Heart Disease in Vegetarian South Asians ............... 47 C. Vitamin B

and Homocysteine.................................................. 47 D. n-3 Fatty Acids............................................................................. 47

V. Conclusion..........................................................................................48 References ....................................................................................................48

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the major cause of death in most Western countries, and is rapidly becoming a major cause of death in developing countries too. Lopez and Murray