The link between nutrition and competitive sport – both amateur and professional – is regularly discussed. Whether a purely plant-based or mixed diet affects the performance of amateur long-distance runners has now been investigated with the largest European running study. The main result: Whether vegan, vegetarian or mixed diet, the mileage hardly differs.
Katharina Wirnitzer (Tyrol University of Education and Institute for Sports Sciences at the University of Innsbruck) carried out a detailed analysis of the so-called NURMI running study with nutritionists from the University of Vienna and Switzerland and was able to draw on data from a total of 2864 competitive recreational runners. They are people who also engage in long-distance competitions (ten kilometers, half marathon, marathon and ultramarathon).
Many runners are vegan
Even the initial data for all study participants showed a high proportion of people on a plant-based diet at 55.6 percent (20.9 percent vegetarians, 34.7 percent vegans). 44.4 percent indicated a mixed diet.
The information from 245 amateur athletes was used for the analysis of long-distance running results and nutrition. The mean age was 39 years, the mean body mass index (BMI) 21.7, which corresponded to a normal weight. 45 percent said mixed food was their diet, 18 percent described themselves as vegetarians and 37 percent as vegans.
As in many other studies, men also showed a tendency towards meat in their diet: 53 percent of them indicated a mixed diet. This type of diet was also associated with a higher average weight (68 kg versus 65 kg for the whole group).
“No disadvantages for the best maturity”
Finally, the question was asked about the best results in half marathon, marathon and ultramarathon competitions. The results have been published in Nutrients. Study director Katharina Wirnitzer and her co-authors summarized as follows: “Overall, the results of the NURMI study support the idea that a sustainable – especially vegan – diet is associated with good health and beneficial nutrition and has no disadvantages for the best running time, so a vegan diet is an equivalent alternative to the traditional mixed diet for endurance runners.”
This is also evident from the data on the fastest race results: the average best time for a marathon run was 230 minutes for all subjects. Athletes on mixed diets achieved an average best time of 228 minutes, vegetarians (231 minutes) and vegans (233 minutes) were slightly higher. The differences were not statistically significant. This also applied to the other running distances (half marathon or ultramarathon with more than 50 kilometers).
Source: Krone
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