Lenten Season Study Results

Dear Lenten Season Study Participants and Supporters, 

At last, the long-awaited update about the findings of the Lenten Season Study is here! Before I dive into the details, I want to mention that I will be a guest on the Everyday Orthodox live listener call-in show on Ancient Faith radio, hosted by Elissa Bjeletich, this upcoming Thursday, March 1, 2018 at 8:00 pm Eastern Time/7:00 pm Central Time/6:00 pm Mountain Time/5:00 pm Pacific Time. Tune in live by going to http://www.ancientfaith.com/ and clicking on the “Listen” button under the “Talk” channel. I would like to invite you to join the conversation by calling in with questions (1-855-AFRADIO) or joining the online chat room. If you cannot catch the show live, you will be able to listen to it later as a downloadable podcast: http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/everydayorthodox.

If you recall, the Lenten Season Study aimed to explore if and how the Orthodox Christian practice of fasting from meat, dairy, and eggs during Lent impacts measures cardiovascular and metabolic health. What did the study find? First, it revealed just how challenging it is to obtain an accurate measurement of what people eat, which made it difficult to address all of my study questions. It also demonstrated that there is high variation in what people eat before and during Lent and, hence, in how people’s health markers respond to the Lenten dietary and lifestyle changes. For example, before Lent, some people eat more animal products while others eat less of them; some people start out with higher blood cholesterol while others already have low cholesterol levels. This means that giving up meat, dairy, and eggs during Lent has a different impact from person to person. This variation makes it difficult to identify trends in my small study of approximately 100 participants.

Despite these challenges, one very clear result stood out from this study: total and LDL cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol) decreased by approximately 12-13%, on average, in just 5 weeks among those who made the largest reductions in their consumption of meat, dairy, and egg products during Lent. Some of this reduction in blood cholesterol was due to small reductions in weight, though average weight loss was only about 2-3 pounds. No significant shifts in blood sugar, insulin, or C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation) were observed in this study population during Lent.

I explored whether the degree of change in blood cholesterol and other health markers depended on what plant-based foods participants reported consuming in higher quantities during Lent. A couple of other studies have suggested that the kinds of plant-based foods consumed in a meat- and dairy-free diet influence how health-promoting the diet is. No such trends were identified in the Lenten Season Study, but this may have been due to the high dietary variation and small study population. What was noted, however, was that those who made the greatest reductions in meat, dairy, and egg intake during Lent also tended to consume fewer calories, less protein, and less saturated fat while eating more legumes, meat substitutes (e.g., tofu and veggie burgers), nuts and seeds, and oils.

What can we conclude from this study? To begin with, it is important to remember that the results of any single study, especially a small one such as this one, cannot conclusively prove anything. It takes many parallel studies exploring the same question in subtly different ways to develop greater certainty of new scientific ideas. Nonetheless, this study does support the findings of previous studies conducted in other parts of the world showing that the Orthodox Christian Lenten fasting practice is associated with reductions in blood cholesterol. It is unknown, however, whether these reductions translate into long-term health benefits. Hopefully, these study findings will lay the foundation for a larger study that can include Orthodox Christians from across the United States and that can investigate the health implications of Orthodox Christian fasting practices more thoroughly.

Many thanks to all of you for your participation in and/or support on this dissertation research project! Tune into the radio show or email me (hilaryjb@uw.edu) if you have any specific questions or want to find out more details about the Lenten Season Study results.