Key words: vegetarianism, diabetes mellitus

Vegetarianism is an old classic eating behavior that leads to lessening of several health risk factors. Vegetarian diet is reported to improve control of blood glucose concentration, to lower insulin requirement and to aid in weight control in diabetic patients. However, there is no evidence for the prevalence of diabetes mellitus to be significantly lower in vegetarians than in non-vegetarians. In this study, the prevalence of diabetes mellitus was compared between the groups of vegetarians and of well matched control subjects. According to the results obtained, the prevalence of diabetes in vegetarians and nonvegetarians was 2.5% (1/40) and 20% (8/40), respectively, yielding a significantly higher rate in the latter (p<0.005). INTRODUCTION