Table 5.

Comparison of Vegetarian With Nonvegetarian Dietary Patterns With Respect to Categories of Noncancer, Noncardiovascular Mortality From a Cox Proportional Hazards Regression Model Among Participants in the Adventist Health Study 2, 2002–2009

Characteristic	Hazard Ratio (95% CI)
Characteristic	Infectious^a	Neurologic^a	Respiratory^a	Renal^a	Endocrine^a
All (N = 73 308), No. of deaths^b,^c	64	182	172	67	104
Vegetarian	0.93 (0.53–1.62)	0.93 (0.67–1.29)	0.95 (0.68–1.32)	0.48 (0.28–0.82)	0.61 (0.40–0.92)
Nonvegetarian	1 [Reference]	1 [Reference]	1 [Reference]	1 [Reference]	1 [Reference]
Men (n = 25 105), No. of deaths^b	31	80	72	34	41
Vegetarian	0.85 (0.39–1.86)	0.86 (0.53–1.40)	1.13 (0.67–1.92)	0.42 (0.19–0.91)	0.48 (0.25–0.92)
Nonvegetarian	1 [Reference]	1 [Reference]	1 [Reference]	1 [Reference]	1 [Reference]
Women (n = 48 203), No. of deaths^b,^d	33	102	100	33	63
Vegetarian	0.97 (0.44–2.11)	0.97 (0.63–1.49)	0.88 (0.57–1.36)	0.57 (0.28–1.19)	0.76 (0.44–1.30)
Nonvegetarian	1 [Reference]	1 [Reference]	1 [Reference]	1 [Reference]	1 [Reference]

The most common specific causes of mortality for each category: infectious (septicemia, International Statistical Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision [ICD-10] code A41, 32 deaths); neurologic (Alzheimer disease, ICD-10 G30, 93 deaths; Parkinson disease, ICD-10 G20, 34 deaths); respiratory (influenza and pneumonia, ICD-10 J10-18, 59 deaths; emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ICD-10 J43-44, 49 deaths; interstitial lung disease, ICD-10 J84, 29 deaths); renal (renal failure, ICD-10 N17-19, 40 deaths); and endocrine (diabetes mellitus, ICD-10 E10-14, 67 deaths).

Adjusted by age (ie, attained age as time variable), race (black, nonblack), smoking (current smoker, quit <1 year, quit 1–4 years, quit 5–9 years, quit 10–19 years, quit 20–29 years, quit ≥30 years, and never smoked), exercise (none, ≤20 min/wk, 21–60 min/wk, 61–150 min/wk, and ≥151 min/wk), personal income (≥$20 000/y, >$20 000–$50 000/y, >$50 000–$100 000/y, and >$100 000/y), educational level (up to high school graduate, trade school/some college/associate degree, bachelor degree, and graduate degree), marital status (married/common-law and single/widowed/divorced/separated), alcohol (nondrinker, rare drinker [<1.5 servings/mo], monthly drinker [1.5 to <4 servings/mo], weekly drinker [4 to <28 servings/mo], and daily drinker [≥28 servings/mo]), geographic region (West, Northwest, Mountain, Midwest, East, and South), and sleep (≤4 h/night, 5–8 h/night, and ≥9 h/night).

Also adjusted by sex (male and female), menopause (premenopausal [including perimenopausal], postmenopausal), and hormone therapy (in postmenopausal women) (not taking hormone therapy, taking hormone therapy).

Also adjusted by menopause (premenopausal [including perimenopausal], postmenopausal) and hormone therapy (in postmenopausal women) (not taking hormone therapy, taking hormone therapy).