No meat a day keeps the doctor away, study shows

PARIS (AFP) - A vegetarian diet can cut the risk of heart disease by as much as 32 per cent, according to a British study published on Wednesday.

Researchers who followed more than 44,500 volunteers for about 11 years on average, found vegetarians were significantly less prone to cardiac trouble.

In the 50-70 age group, 6.8 per cent of people who ate meat or fish were hospitalised or died from heart disease, compared to 4.6 per cent of vegetarians.

"We think (it) is due to their lower cholesterol and blood pressure," lead researcher Francesca Crowe from the University of Oxford's Cancer Epidemiology Unit told AFP.