Position Paper
ENG135
Jonathan Dougherty
Professor Stephen Mendonca

DISCUSSION
The objective of this study is to examine the differences between the vegan and omnivore diet and to study the relationship of these diets to body composition, blood lipids, and the serum hormones vitamin D and parathyroid hormone. As seen previously, those eating an omnivore diet consumed significantly more dietary protein than those consuming a vegan diet (2; 3). The values we observed for dietary protein in both the vegan and the omnivore groups were similar to those seen by Hadded et al. (3) and Janelle and Barr (2). The women in our study eating an omnivore diet exceeded the RDA for protein. In contrast to other studies of vegetarians and vegans, our data also showed that vegan women met the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for protein (50 g) (7). Low protein intake has been shown to cause secondary hyperparathyroidism (4), but this is not seen in our vegan group perhaps because the protein intake in the vegan group did not fall as below as 0.7g/kg; the level that resulted in hyperparathyroidism in the Kerstetter et al. study (4) and is above the recommended intake of 0.8g/kg (7). Total fat, saturated fat, and dietary cholesterol have been previously reported to be higher in omnivores (2; 3) and our data agree with those findings. This is likely due to the inclusion of meat and dairy products, high in protein and fat, in the omnivore diet
Fiber, vitamin A, and vitamin C were seen to be significantly greater in past studies of vegans, (2); however, we did not observe higher vitamin A or C in our vegan group compared to the omnivore group. One would expect vegans to have a higher fruit and vegetable intake than omnivores and, therefore, have higher vitamin A and C intake than omnivores. The lack of this finding may suggest that the omnivore group is a "healthy" cohort eating