Quality of life of female and male vegetarian and vegan endurance runners compared to omnivores - results from the NURMI study (step 2) It is known that health-related effects of a vegetarian or vegan diet support parameters that positively influence training performance in athletes, while the knowledge of psyche and well-being is sparse. The aim of the study was to compare the quality of life of endurance athletes after a vegetarian or vegan diet with those who hold a conventional diet. A total of 281 recreational runners (159 women, 122 men) filled the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire consisting of physical health, psychic well-being, social relationships and environment and scored on a scale of 4 to 20 points. It turned out that 123 people held a conventional diet and 158 a vegetarian / vegan diet.There were 173 runners who fulfilled the inclusion criteria, including 103 semi-marathon runners and 70 marathon and ultramarathon runners and 108 10 km runners as a control group. The total QOL values were high (\ ~ 16.62 ± 1.91).Men had higher scores as women due to high scores in physical health and psychological well-being. A smaller effect on the RenDistanz was observed in women, where half marathon runners had a higher score than 10 km runners.A moderate interaction diet × RenDistential action on environmental values was shown for men. The results showed that endurance runners had a high quality of life regardless of the RenDistance or the diet.
These results support the idea that compliance with a vegetarian or vegan diet may be a reasonable and equivalent alternative to a conventional diet. The whole work can be found under https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30016961/