Editorial cover for an article on vegetarian diets and chronic kidney disease risk. On the right, a sage green kitchen colander with two side handles holds green leaves, round soft gold lentils and two small red tomatoes. A single row of small round drain holes runs along the lower curve of the colander. Four water droplets fall vertically from beneath the holes toward a shallow wide dish waiting below. On the left, the title Vegetarian Diets and Kidney Risk and the line about 416,584 adults followed for 12.9 years, a 19% lower risk, and the study being observational.

Vegetarian Diets and Kidney Disease: What a 416,584-Person Study Found

ByVegan Sağlık Yayın Ekibi
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416,584 UK adults with no kidney disease at the start were followed for an average of 12.9 years. 23,084 of them developed chronic kidney disease. Compared with people who ate red or processed meat more than five or six times a week, vegetarians had a 19% lower risk of a CKD diagnosis (HR 0.81, 95% CI 0.71–0.93). The study is observational, so it cannot show that the diet caused the difference — and its “vegetarian” group contains only 367 vegans, too few to analyse on their own.

What was published

“Vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of chronic kidney disease in a population-based study” appeared in Scientific Reports on 3 August 2026 (volume 16, article 23849), after acceptance on 14 July. Its eight authors work at universities in Vienna, Belfast, Zurich, Fulda and Oxford. They declare no competing interests and no funding support, and the paper is open access under CC BY 4.0.

What they did

The data come from the UK Biobank, which recruited over 500,000 people aged 40–69 at 22 centres in England, Scotland and Wales between 2006 and 2010. Diet was recorded once, at recruitment, with a questionnaire covering how often participants ate 29 food items. After removing people with missing dietary data or measurements, and 9,057 who already had CKD, 416,584 of the original 502,166 participants remained.

They were sorted by what they reported eating: 195,030 high meat eaters (red or processed meat, poultry included, more than 5–6 times a week), 199,478 low meat eaters, 4,779 poultry eaters, 9,647 pescatarians and 7,650 vegetarians. Vegans were counted separately at first, but at 367 people the group was too small for stable estimates, so the authors merged them into the vegetarian group, as earlier UK Biobank work had done.

New CKD cases came from hospital records, via ICD-10 and OPCS-4 codes. Risk was modelled with Cox regression using age as the time scale, adjusted for sex, income, education, smoking, alcohol, physical activity, BMI and waist circumference, and stratified by ethnicity and type 2 diabetes.

What they found

A gradient, with vegetarians at one end. Compared with high meat eaters, adjusted CKD risk was 3% lower in low meat eaters (HR 0.97, 95% CI 0.943–0.996), 2% lower in poultry eaters, 9% lower in pescatarians and 19% lower in vegetarians (HR 0.81, 95% CI 0.711–0.927). Only the low meat eater and vegetarian estimates reached statistical significance. In raw counts, 232 of 7,650 vegetarians (3%) developed CKD, compared with 11,796 of 195,030 high meat eaters (6%) — percentages that take no account of age, and vegetarians here were three years younger on average.

The result held up when the authors pushed on it. Adjusting additionally for baseline kidney function strengthened the vegetarian estimate slightly, to HR 0.80 (0.676–0.938); adding a polygenic risk score gave HR 0.79 (0.67–0.94). The association was similar in men (21% lower) and women (16% lower) and consistent across genetic and ethnic groups, with no statistically significant heterogeneity between subgroups.

One finding cuts against a common clinical worry. In the subsample with 24-hour dietary recall data (178,209 people), vegetarians ate more fibre but less potassium and phosphate than high meat eaters. Kidney patients are routinely told to limit both, and plant foods are widely assumed to be the problem. The authors present these figures as descriptive only, with no statistical tests.

What the study does not show

  • It is not about people who already have CKD. Everyone with kidney disease at baseline was excluded. It asks who develops CKD, not what someone with CKD should eat.
  • It cannot separate diet from the life around it. Vegetarians here were younger, slimmer, less often smokers and more highly educated. The authors write plainly that the modest effect “may partly reflect overall healthier lifestyle patterns rather than diet alone, and causal interpretations should therefore be made with caution.”
  • It says almost nothing about vegans. 367 vegans were folded into a group of 7,650, and the authors note that the two diets have partly distinct nutritional profiles, so merging them may dilute the association.
  • The cohort is not the population. UK Biobank volunteers are healthier than the UK average and predominantly of white European descent.
  • Diet was measured once, years before the diagnoses, and the grouping mixes two rules: meat eaters are defined by frequency, pescatarians and vegetarians by exclusion.
  • Hospital coding finds advanced disease, and baseline eGFR and albumin-creatinine ratio were each measured once, not over three months as the clinical definition requires.

A practical note for readers

An estimated 674 million people worldwide have chronic kidney disease. Its most common causes in adults are diabetes and high blood pressure, and it is usually silent until late — which is why the World Health Organization recommends testing people at risk rather than waiting for symptoms: creatinine in blood, albumin in urine, both available in primary care.

What this study adds is worth taking at its actual size: one more piece of observational evidence, from a large and carefully analysed cohort, pointing the same way as earlier work in the United States and Taiwan. It is a reason to keep plant-based eating on the list of things that appear to protect the kidneys, and not a reason for anyone to change treatment. If you already have kidney disease, the protein, potassium and phosphate advice you were given is specific to your stage and your blood results; ask your nephrologist or renal dietitian before changing anything.

If you are healthy and eat plant-based, the implication is the ordinary one: a diet built on whole plant foods, with the nutrients that need attention actually covered. Our guide to building a balanced vegan plate covers the structure, and how to read nutrition research explains why a hazard ratio of 0.81 in an observational cohort is a signal worth noting rather than a proven effect.

Sources

  1. Candussi CJ, Bell W, Mutapcic M, Thompson AS, Rohrmann S, Cassidy A, Kühn T, Gaggl M. Vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of chronic kidney disease in a population-based study. Sci Rep. 2026;16:23849. doi:10.1038/s41598-026-62827-2.
  2. World Health Organization. Kidney disease. Fact sheet.
  3. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).

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Editor: Anıl Güler, Pharmacist
Last scientific review: 20 September 2026

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