Análise das condições sociodemográficas, estilo de vida e fatores de risco cardiovascular em vegetarianos

Abstract

Plant-based dietary practices, known in the world literature as plant-based diets, are practices that advocate the consumption of vegetables, fruits, legumes and whole grains, partially or totally excluding the consumption of animal products. They contemplate vegan/vegetarian strict, vegetarian and ovolactovegerarian eating practices. In this sense, studies report protective effects of these eating practices on chronic non-communicable diseases, especially on cardiovascular diseases. The benefits of plant-based diets are well documented in the scientific literature, however, they do not appear to be exclusively related to the withdrawal diets of animals, suggesting that many of the benefits also come from factors non-dietary of lifestyle. In view of this, this study aimed to analyze and describe the sociodemographic conditions, lifestyle and cardiovascular risk factors in university vegetarians of a public university in the city of João Pessoa, Paraíba. For this, a cross-sectional study was carried out with 65 vegetarians, both sex, over 18 years of age, recruited from the Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, Brazil. To fulfill the objectives, the vegetarians answered questionnaires about sociodemographic conditions, lifestyle, eating practices, physical activity and health conditions. They were also submitted to anthropometry, blood pressure measurement and blood collection. As indicators of cardiovascular risk factor, body mass index, waist circumference, waist / hip ratio, waist / height ratio, blood pressure, blood glucose and lipid profile were used. The data were analyzed in the statistical program SPSS. Vegetarians had a mean age of 23.15 ± 3.52 years, mostly female, single and childless, with monthly income less than 1 minimum wage, lived with family or friends and currently attended a graduation. The majority of the participants were ovolactovegetarian, physically active, non-smokers, presented sporadic frequency of alcohol consumption, did not perform dietary / vitamin supplementation, did not have professional guidance during the transition to the vegetarian diet, and had no diagnoses of diseases. They presented ethics and animal protection as the main reasons for the adoption of plant-based diets, and the beans as the main source of protein, as well as one daily frequency of vegetable consumption and the presence of fast food and sugar consumption, the main sugar being the type demerara / brown. In addition, most of them performed yoga and meditation, consumed whole and organic / agro ecological goods and had a considerable lack of professional follow-up and regular biochemical exams. They also demonstrated adequate diagnosis for the indicators of cardiovascular risk factors investigated, anthropometric and biochemical. The only indicator that was inadequate was HDL-c. This research showed the presence of lifestyle factors non-dietary favorable to cardiovascular health and a positive scenario in relation to the anthropometric and biochemical factors of cardiovascular risk evaluated.